"I should now be sorry to think otherwise," I said huskily. I

thought of that poisonous draught. I thought with many misgivings,

and trembled where I sat.

"You surprise me to hear you speak so. Surely, Clifford, you love

your wife!"

"Love her!" I exclaimed; I could say no more. My sobs choked my

utterance.

"Nay, do not give up," he said tenderly. "Be a man. All will go well

yet. The facts are anything but conclusive. These papers have a

realness about them, which have their weight against any suspicions,

however strong. Remember, these are the declarations of a dying man!

Surely, all minor considerations of policy would give way at such

a moment to the all-important necessity of speaking the truth.

Besides, there is one consideration alone, to which we have made no

reference, which yet seems to me full of weight and value. Edgerton

could scarcely have been successful in his designs upon your wife.

He was in fact dying of the disappointment of his passions. They

could not have been gratified. Success takes an exulting aspect.

He was always miserable and wo-begone--always desponding, sad,

unhappy, from the first moment when this passion began, to the

last."

"Guilt, guilt, nothing but guilt!"

"No, Clifford, no!--The guilt that works so terribly upon conscience

as to produce such effects upon the frame, inevitably leads to

repentance. Now, we find that Edgerton pursued his object until he

was detected."

I shook my head.

"Do not steel yourself against probabilities, my dear fellow," said

Kingsley.

"Proofs against probabilities always!"

"No! none of these are proofs except the papers you have in your

hands, and the imperfect events which you witnessed. I am so much

an admirer of your wife myself, that I am ready to believe this

statement against the rest; and to believe that, however strange

may have been her conduct in some respects, it will yet be explained

in a manner which shall acquit her of misconduct. Believe me,

Clifford, think with me--"

"No! no! I can not--dare not! She is a--"

"Do not! Do not! No harsh words, even were it so! She has been

your wife. She should still be sacred in your eyes, as one who has

slept upon your bosom."

"A traitress all the while, dreaming of the embraces of another."

"Clifford, what can this mean? You are singularly inveterate."

"Should I not be so? Am I not lost--abandoned--wrecked on the high

seas of my hope--my fortunes scattered to the winds--my wealth, the

jewel which I prized beyond all beside, which was worth the whole,

gone down, swallowed up, and the black abyss closed over it for

ever?"

"We are not sure of this"

"I am!"

"No! no!"

"I am! Though she be innocent, who shall rid me of the doubt, the

fear, the ineradicable suspicion! THAT blackens all my sunlight;

THAT poisons all my peace. I can never know delight. Nay, though

you proved her innocent, it is now too late. Kingsley, by this time

I have no wife!"




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