Weeks passed and still William Edgerton was a resident of M---,

and a constant guest at our little cottage. He had, in this time,

effectually broken up the harmony and banished the peace which

had previously prevailed there. The unhappy young man pursued the

same insane course of conduct which had been productive of so much

bitterness and trouble to us all before; and, under the influence

of my evil demon, I adopted the same blind policy which had already

been so fruitful of misery to myself and wife. I gave them constant

opportunities together. I found my associates, and pursued my

pastimes--pastimes indeed--away from home. Poetry and song were

given up--we no longer wandered by the river-side, and upon the

green heights of our sacred hill. My evenings were consumed in dreary

rambles, alone with my own evil thoughts, and miserable fancies,

or consumed with yellow-eyed watching, from porch or tree, upon

those privacies of the suspected lovers, in which I had so shamefully

indulged before. I felt the baseness of this vocation, but I had

not the strength to give it up. I know there is no extenuation for

it.

I know that it was base! base! base! It is a point of conscience

with me, not only to declare the truth, but to call things by the

truest and most characteristic names. Let me do my understanding

the justice to say that, even when I practised the meanness, I was

not ignorant--not insensible of its character. It was the strength

only--the courage to do right, and to forbear the wrong--in which

I was deficient. It was the blind heart, not the unknowing head to

which the shame was attributable, though the pang fell not unequally

upon heart and head.

Meanwhile, Kingsley returned from Texas. He became my principal

companion. We strolled together in my leisure hours by day. We sat

and smoked together in his chamber by night. My blind fortitude

may be estimated, when the reader is told that Kingsley professed

to find me a very agreeable companion. He complimented me on my

liveliness, my wit, my humor, and what not--and this, too, when I

was all the while meditating, with the acutest feeling of apprehension,

upon the very last wrong which the spirit of man is found willing

to endure;--when I believed that the ruin of my house was at hand;

when I believed that the ruin of my heart and hope had already taken

place;--and when, hungering only for the necessary degree of proof

which justice required before conviction, I was laying my gins and

snares with the view to detecting the offenders, and consummating

the last terrible but necessary work of vengeance! But Kingsley

did not confine himself altogether to the language of compliment.

"Good fellow and good companion as you are, Clifford--and loath as

I should be to give up these pleasant evenings, still I think you

very wrong in one respect. You neglect your wife."




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