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.