Yet, even were it so, what could this prove, as the father had

conclusively shown, but guilt. Poverty could not trouble him--he

had never been an unrequited lover. He had gone along the stream of

society, indifferent to the lures of beauty, and with a bark that

had always appeared studiously to keep aloof from the shores or

shoals of matrimony. If he was miserable, his misery could only come

from misconduct, not from misfortune. It was a misery engendered

by guilt, and what was that guilt? I KNEW that he did not drink;

and was not his course in regard to Kingsley, as narrated by that

person on the night when we went to the gaming-house together--was

not that sufficient to show that he was no gamester, unless he

happened to be one of the most bare faced of all canting hypocrites,

which I could not believe him to be. What remained, but that my

calculations were right? It was guilt that was sinking him, body

and soul, so that his eye no longer dared to look upward--so that

his ear shrunk from the sounds of those voices which, even in the

language of kindness, were still speaking to him in the severest

language of rebuke. And whom did that guilt concern more completely

than myself? Say that the father was to lose his son, his only

son--what was my loss, what was my shame! and upon whom should

the curse most fully and finally fall, if not upon the wrong-doer,

though it so happened that the ruin of the guilty brought with it

overthrow to the innocent scarcely less complete!

The extent of that guilt of Edgerton?

On this point all was a wilderness, vague, inconclusive, confused

and crowded within my understanding. I believed that he had

approached my wife with evil designs--I believed, without a doubt,

that he had passed the boundaries of propriety in his intercourse

with her; but I believed not that she had fallen! No! I had an

instinctive confidence in her purity, that rendered it apparently

impossible that she should lapse into the grossness of illicit love.

What, then, was my fear? That she did love him, though, struggling

with the tendency of her heart, she had not yielded in the struggle.

I believed that his grace, beauty, and accomplishments--his

persevering attention--his similar tastes--had succeeded in making

an impression upon her soul which had effectually eradicated mine.

I believed that his attentions were sweet to her--that she had

not the strength to reject them; and, though she may have proved

herself too virtuous to yield, she had not been sufficiently strong

to repulse him with virtuous resentment.

That Edgerton had not succeeded, did not lessen HIS offence. The

attempt was an indignity that demanded atonement--that justified

punishment equally severe with that which should have followed a

successful prosecution of his purpose. Women are by nature weak.

They are not to be tempted. He who, knowing their weakness, attempts

their overthrow by that medium, is equally cowardly and criminal.

I could not doubt that he had made this attempt; but now it seemed

necessary that I should suspend my indignation, in obedience with

what appeared to be a paramount duty. A selfish reasoning now

suggested compliance with this duty as a mean for procuring better

intelligence than I already possessed. I need not say that the

doubt was the pain in my bosom. I felt, in the words of the cold

devil Iago, those "damned minutes" of him "who dotes, yet doubts,

suspects, yet strongly loves."




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024