With his departure sunk the spirit which had sustained me. I had

not gone through that scene willingly; I had suffered quite as

many pangs as himself. I had made my own misery, though disguised

under the supposed condition of another, the subject of my own

mockery; and if I succeeded in driving the iron into HIS soul,

the other end of the shaft was all the while working in mine! His

flight was an equal relief to both of us. The stern spirit left me

from that moment. My agony found relief, momentary though it was,

in a sudden gush of tears. My hot, heavy head sank upon my palms,

and I groaned in unreserved homage to the never-slumbering genius

of pain--that genius which alone is universal--which adopts us from

the cradle--which distinguishes our birth by our tears, hallows

the sentiment of grief to us from the beginning, and maintains

the fountains which supply its sorrows to the end. The lamb skips,

the calf leaps, the fawn bounds, the bird chirps, the young colt

frisks; all things but man enjoy life from its very dawn. He alone

is feeble, suffering. His superior pangs and sorrows are the first

proofs of his singular and superior destiny.

Bitter was the gush of tears that rolled from the surcharged fountains

of my heart; bitter, but free-flowing to my relief, at the moment

when my head seemed likely to burst with a volcanic volume within

it, and when a blistering arrow seemed slowly to traverse, to and

fro, the most sore and shrineing passages of my soul. Had not

Edgerton fled, I could not have sustained it much longer. My passions

would have hurled aside my judgment, and mocked that small policy

under which I acted. I felt that they were about to speak, and

rejoiced that he fled. Had he remained, I should most probably have

poured forth all my suspicion, all my hate; dragged by violence

from his lips the confession of his wrong, and from his heart the

last atonement for it.

At first I reproached myself that I had not done so. I accused

myself of tameness--the dishonorable tameness of submitting to

indignity--the last of all indignities--and of conferring calmly,

even good-humoredly, with the wrong-doer. But cooler moments came.

A brief interval sufficed--helped by the flood of tears which

rushed, hot and scalding, from my eyes--to subdue the angry spirit.

I remembered my pledges to the father; my unspeakable obligations

to him; and when I again recollected that my convictions had not

assailed the purity of my wife, and, at most, had questioned her

affections only, my forbearance seemed justified.

But could the matter rest where it was? Impossible! What was to be

done? It was clear enough that the only thing that could be done,

for the relief of all parties, was to be done by myself. Edgerton

was suffering from a guilty pursuit. That pursuit, if still urged,

might be successful, if not so at present. The constant drip of

the water will wear away the stone; and if my wife could submit

to impertinent advances without declaring them to her husband, the

work of seduction was already half done. To listen is, in half the

number of cases, to fall. I must save her; I had not the courage

to put her from me. Believing that she was still safe, I resolved,

through the excess of that love which was yet the predominant

passion in my soul, in spite of all its contradictions, to keep her

so, if human wit could avail, and human energy carry its desires

into successful completion.




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