"True, true! I had forgotten that."

"Look at all the circumstances. He haunts the house--according

to his own showing, persecutes her with attentions, which are so

marked, that, when he finds her husband ignorant of them, leads him

to the conclusion--which is natural--that they are not displeasing

to the wife. He avails himself of the privileges of the waltz, at

the marriage of Mrs. Delaney, to gratify his lustful anticipations.

He presses her arm and waist with his d----d fingers. Rides home

with her, and, according to his story, takes other liberties,

which she baffles and sets aside. But, mark the truth. Though she

requires him to set her down in the street--though she makes terms

for his forbearance--a wife making terms with a libertine--yet

he evidently sees her into the house, and when she is taken sick,

hurries for the mother and the physician. He tells just enough of

the story to convict himself, but suppresses everything which may

convict her. How know I that this resistance in the carriage was

more than a sham? How know I that he did not attend her in the house?

That they did not dabble together on their way through the dark

piazza--along the stairs?--Nay, what proof is there that he did not

find his way, with polluting purpose, into the very chamber?--that

chamber, from which, not three weeks after, she bade him fly to

avoid my wrath! What makes her so precious of his life--the life

of one who pursues her with lust and dishonor--if she does not burn

with like passions? But there is more."

Here I told him of the letter of Mrs. Delaney, in which that

permanent beldame counsels her daughter, less against the passion

itself, than against the imprudent exhibition of it. It was clear

that the mother had seen what had escaped my eyes. It was clear

that the mother was convinced of the attachment of the daughter

for this man. Now, the attachment being shown, what followed from

the concealment of the indignities to which Edgerton had subjected

her, but that she was pleased with them, and did not feel them

to be such. These indignities are persevered in--are frequently

repeated. Our footsteps are followed from one country to another.

The husband's hours of absence are noted. His departure is the

invariable signal for them to meet. They meet. His hands paddle

with hers; his arms grasp her waist. True, we are told by him, that

she resists; but it is natural that he should make this declaration.

Its truth is combated by the fact that, of these insults, SHE says

nothing. That fact is everything. That one fact involves all the

rest. The woman who conceals such a history, shares in the guilt.

Kingsley assented to these conclusions.

"Yet," he said, "there is an air of truthfulness about these

papers--this narrative--that I should be pleased to believe, even

if I could not;--that I should believe for your sake, Clifford,

if for no other reason. Honestly, after all you have said and

shown--with all the unexplained and perhaps unexplainable particulars

before me, making the appearances so much against her--I can not

think your wife guilty. I should be sorry to think so."




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