Thus, then, I was once more at sea, rudderless--not yet

companionless--perhaps, soon to be so. My relapse was as sudden as

my thought. It seemed as if every past misery of doubt and suspicion

were at once revived within me. All my day-dreams vanished in an

instant. William Edgerton would again behold--would again seek--my

wife. They must meet; I owed that to the father; and, whatever the

condition of the son might be, it was evident that his feelings

toward her must be the same as ever; else, why should he seek her

out?--why pursue our footsteps and haunt my peace? I must receive

him and treat him kindly for the father's sake; but that one bitter

thought, that he was pursuing us, the deadly enemy to my peace--and

now, evidently, a wilful one--gave venom to the bitter feeling with

which I had so long regarded his attentions.

It was evident, too, whatever may have been its occasion, that the

knowledge of his coming awakened strange emotions in the bosom of

my wife. That blush--that sudden paleness of the cheek--what was

their language? I fain would have struggled against the conviction,

that it denoted a guilty consciousness of the past--a guilty

feeling of the future. But the mocking demon of the blind heart

forced the assurance upon me. What was to be done? Ah! what? This

was the question, and there was no variation in the reply which

my jealous spirit made. There was but one refuge. I must pursue

the same insidious policy as before. I must resort to the same

subterfuge, meet them with the same smiles, disguise once more the

true features of my soul; seem to shut my eyes, and afford them the

same opportunities as before, in the torturing hope (fear?) that

I should finally detect them in some guilty folly which would be

sufficient to justify the final punishment. I must put on the aspect

of indifference, the better to pursue the vocation of the spy.

Base necessity, but still, as I then fancied, a necessity not the

less. Ah I was I not a thing to be pitied? Was ever any case more

pitiable than mine? I ask not this question with any hope that

an answer may be found to justify my conduct. It is not the less

pitiable--nay, it is more--that no such answer can be found. My

folly is not the less a thing of pity, because it is also a thing

of scorn. That was the pity--and yet, I was most severely tried.

Deep were my sufferings! Strong was that demon within me--I care

not how engendered, whether by the fault and folly of others, or

by my own--still it was strong. If I was guilty--base, blind--was

I not also suffering? Never did I inflict on the bosom of Julia

Clifford, so deep a pang as I daily--nay, hourly, inflicted upon

my own. She was a victim, true--but was I less so! But she was

innocently a victim, therefore, less a sufferer, whatever her

sufferings, than me! Let none condemn or curse me, till they have

asked what curse I have already undergone. I live!--they will say.

Ah! me! They must ask what is the value of life, not to themselves,

but to a crushed, a blasted heart, like mine! But I hurry forward

with my pangs rather than my story.




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