This conviction now began to haunt my mind with all the punctuality

of a shadow. It came to me unconsciously, uncalled for; mingled

with other thoughts and disturbed them all. Whether at my desk, or

in the courts; among men in the crowded mart, or in places simply

where the idle and the thoughtless congregate, it was still my

companion. It was, however, still a shadow only; a dull, intangible,

half-formed image of the mind; the crude creature of a fear rather

than a desire; for, of a truth, nothing could be more really

terrible to me than the apparent necessity of taking the life of

one so dear to me once, and still so dear to the only friends I had

ever known.

I need not say how silently I strove to banish this

conviction. My struggles on this subject were precisely those which

are felt by nervous men suddenly approaching a precipice, and,

though secure, flinging themselves off, in the extremity of their

apprehensions of that danger which has assumed in their imaginations

an aspect so absorbing. With such persons, the extreme anxiety

to avoid the deed, whether of evil or of mere danger, frequently

provokes its commission. I felt that this risk encountered me. I

well knew that an act often contemplated may be already considered

half-performed; and though I could not rid myself of the impression

that I was destined to do the deed the very idea of which made me

shudder, I yet determined, with all the remaining resolution of

my virtue, to dismiss it from my thought, as I resolved to escape

from its performance if I could.

It would have been easy enough for me to have kept this resolution as

it was enough for me to make it, had it not clashed with a superior

passion in my mind; but that blindness of heart under which I

labored, impaired my judgment, enfeebled my resolution, baffled

my prudence, defeated all my faculties of self-preservation. I was,

in fact, a monomaniac. On one subject, I was incapable of thought,

of sane reasoning, of fixed purpose. I am unwilling to distinguish

this madness by the word "jealousy." In the ordinary sense of the

term it was not jealousy. Phrenologists would call it an undue

development of self-esteem, diseased by frequent provocation into

an irritable suspiciousness, which influenced all the offices of

thought. It was certain, to myself, that in instituting the watch

which I did over the conduct of my wife and William Edgerton, I

did not expect to discover the commission of any gross act which,

in the vulgar acceptation of the world, constitutes the crime of

infidelity.

The pang would not have been less to my mind, though

every such act was forborne, if I perceived that her eyes yearned

for his coming, and her looks of despondency took note of his

absence. If I could see that she hearkened to his words with the

ears of one who deferred even to devotedness, and found that pleasure

in his accents which should only have been accorded to mine. It is

the low nature, alone, which seeks for developments beyond these,

to constitute the sin of faithlessness. Of looks, words, consideration,

habitual deference, and eager attention, I was quite as uxorious

as I should have been of the warm kiss, or the yielding, fond

embrace. They were the same in my eyes. It was for the momentary

glance, the passing word, the forgetful sigh, that I looked and

listened, while I pursued the unhappy espionage upon my wife and

her lover. That he was her lover, was sufficiently evident--how

far she was pleased with his devotion was the question to be asked

and--answered!




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