"No, sir, finish it now; I pity you--I do earnestly pity you."

"Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of

tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of

those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous,

selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes,

crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But

that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your

whole face is full at this moment--with which your eyes are now

almost overflowing--with which your heart is heaving--with which

your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the

suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the

divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free

advent--my arms wait to receive her."

"Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?"

"Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect

was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the

world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved

to be clean in my own sight--and to the last I repudiated the

contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection

with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and

person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of

her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I

remembered I had once been her husband--that recollection was then,

and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while

she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife;

and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied

to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as

long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind.

Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.

"One night I had been awakened by her yells--(since the medical men

had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)--it was a

fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently

precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in

bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-

steams--I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came

buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I

could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake--black

clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves,

broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball--she threw her last bloody

glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was

physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were

filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she

momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with

such language!--no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary

than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word--the thin

partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction

to her wolfish cries.




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