"The state to which you have reduced yourself by your imprudence makes it impossible."

"For G.o.d's sake, let me go with you, Edward."

I took his hand, but he drew it abruptly away. I mentally cursed the day on which I was born.

"Calm yourself," said Edward, sternly; "I cannot speak to you now: I shall write to you. A new state of things must begin between us; but this is no time for an explanation."

"No, no! you _cannot_, you _shall_ not leave me with so horrible a doubt, so dreadful a fear..."

"Have you forgotten that your uncle is dying? Is this a moment for theatrical display?--for the exhibition of a feigned tenderness?"

"Feigned! Good G.o.d! is it come to that?"

"Have you no message to send him?--no pardon to implore of him as well as of me?"

"Edward! what are you saying? Edward! Edward!--do you know?

Have you heard?--Do you forgive? I am innocent!--on my knees I swear that I am innocent!"

"Innocent! Yes, I believe you are what you have learned to call innocent,--and may G.o.d keep you so. I dare not trust myself to say another word. I have struggled to be calm; I have prayed earnestly for strength against myself,--strength not to cast you off, and it has been given me. G.o.d bless you, and forgive you! I shall write to you soon and often, and, I hope, send better accounts of Mr. Middleton. Write to me and to your aunt."

He coldly held out his hand to me, and I felt as if I was dying. I opened my arms wildly, and cried, "Kill me, but do not leave me so!"

A convulsive emotion pa.s.sed over his face; he bent over me and kissed me. I threw my arms round his neck and clung to him.

Oh! did not all the love of my soul pa.s.s into his, in that one last embrace? As my throbbing heart was pressed to his, did not each pulsation tell all its pa.s.sionate tenderness? For an instant he seemed to feel it, for he drew me closer and closer to him; but suddenly he started back, as if he recoiled from my touch, and almost flung me from him; and, disengaging his hand from mine, he left me abruptly.

I heard his steps down the stairs; I heard his voice in the hall; then there was a moment during which I heard nothing; and then there was the sound of the carriage-wheels; and then the hall-door was shut; and then all was over; and I wrung my hands, and thrust the bed-clothes into my mouth to stifle my groans. I felt as if my head would burst. Sob after sob rose in my chest and shook my frame; and all night the doctor was by my side, and he and my maid gave me draughts to drink, which I took eagerly, for my mouth was parched and my lips burning; and towards morning I fell asleep again.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Oh there's a fatal story to be told, Be deaf to that as Heaven has been to me.

How wilt thou curse thy fond believing heart, Tear me from the warm bosom of thy love, And throw me like a poisonous weed away.

Can I bear that? hear to be curst and torn And thrown out of thy family and name-- Like a disease? Can I bear this from thee?

I never can, no, all things have their end, When I am dead, forgive and pity me."

FATAL MARRIAGE.

"I must be patient till the Heavens look With an aspect more favourable * * * * * *

I am not p.r.o.ne to weeping, as our s.e.x Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance, shall dry your pities, but I have That honourable grief lodged here, which b.u.ms Worse than tears drown."

SHAKESPEARE.

The next day I did not attempt to get up; it seemed to me that Edward's absence, and his last words, had taken from me all energy--all power of thinking or acting. It was as a dream that I could not shake off, though at the same time I felt all its dreadful reality. I dared not stir in body or in spirit; the quiet of a sick-room--the silence around me--the exclusion of light and noise--harmonised with the extraordinary state in which I was. Strange delusions haunted me; I often saw figures pa.s.s and repa.s.s before my bed; and when it was Edward's form that I discerned, I held my breath, and prayed that the illusion might last. But sometimes they were dreadful; the visions I had--the voices I heard! I dare not think of them now; for the night is coming--my room is dark--my sight is weak--and my brain is on fire.

On the third morning after Edward's departure a letter was brought to me. The direction was in his handwriting, and a mist obscured my sight. I pressed it to my heart, and closed my eyes for an instant. _Now_, I should know all. _Now_, I should know my sentence. Alice's rival--Henry's accomplice--I stood condemned by my own heart; and as I broke the seal of Edward's letter, I felt as if I should read my death-warrant.

EDWARD'S LETTER.

"CALAIS, _Sat.u.r.day_.

"This is the first time I have written to you since our marriage. This is better for yourself and for me, and makes it easier to write now in the way in which henceforward we must act and feel towards each other. I will not upbraid you. G.o.d has visited upon me the sin of my heart, and I pray to Him that yours may never find you out. To save you from the last step in guilt, and all its misery, is now my only object.

"I shall return to you as soon as the sacred duty I am now engaged in is fulfilled; I shall return to you, for I wish your reputation to be preserved. The only request I make is, that you will never again attempt to act the part which you have hitherto so ably performed. I shall expect from you respect and submission, for without them, how can I save you?

but one of those looks--one of those words which once made my happiness, would _now_ drive me from you for ever. Attempt no defence; offer no explanations; if you repent, mourn over the past in silence, and silently resign yourself, as I do, to the life which lies before us. Write to me, but do not answer this letter. That you may not be tempted to do so, I will go through the painful task of explaining to you the manner in which my eyes have been opened to what I might have seen long ago, had it not been for the deep hypocrisy of your life, and of your character. I said I would not upbraid you; but the simple mention of facts must become the most cutting reproach.

When I look back to the last two years, and remember the many proofs I have had of your secret and powerful interest in Henry's fate, and of the tenacity with which you have clung to his society, I ask myself how you could ever have deceived me as you have done? But when I recollect what you have professed, the way in which you have acted, all that you have said to me, I almost doubt the evidence of my senses.

"Vague but painful doubts had latterly shot across me; and had I believed it to be in human nature, or in woman's power, to feign such love as you seemed to feel for me, I should have _feared_ what I _now know_. From the moment when, in accidental conversation, I heard that in defiance of my advice, you had spent the day alone with Henry, to that in which I received anonymously the notes I now send you, the truth was gradually disclosed to me. I saw you change colour; I saw your lip quiver, and heard your voice tremble. I saw you in ungovernable pa.s.sion upbraid the man who you fancied had betrayed you, and then, in the excess of your agitation, you fainted at my feet. When I went to your bedside, and gazed on your pale face, with the faint hope that I had been mistaken, that I had not read right your uncontrollable agitation--even then your lips opened and uttered a pa.s.sionate adjuration to Henry, not to leave or forsake you, which drove me from your side with thoughts and feelings that time and prayer alone can subdue. When, on the following day, in a cover, directed by an unknown hand, I received the confirmation of what was already too sure, in the first agony of grief and indignation, I resolved to part from you for ever; and it was not till I had gone through the severest struggles with myself, that I came to my present determination. The summons I received a few hours afterwards to your uncle's death-bed, confirmed it. I would not carry to his dying ears the intelligence of your guilt, and of its results; nor would I load my conscience with promises which, had I discarded you, could never have been fulfilled. You have not yet been criminal save in thought and in heart; you have sworn it, and I believe you. G.o.d have mercy upon you, if in this too you have deceived me; but if you are not perjured--if you have not called upon G.o.d Almighty to witness a lie--then kneel to Him each day of your life, and bless Him that he has saved you. And now listen to the commands I lay upon you, and obey them strictly, as you value--what shall I say? What have you ever valued? What have you ever respected? You have profaned the most sacred feelings--the holiest emotions of our nature; and I know not by what tie, by what hope, or by what fear to adjure you. If you would not become a mark for the finger of scorn to point at; if you would not die of a broken heart, or live with a hardened one; if you have any horror of the lowest depths of vice, or any lingering sense of duty, weigh the importance of this moment of your life, and throw not away this last hope of salvation. I have written to Mrs. Moore to propose to her that as soon as you are well enough to move, you should go to Hampstead, and remain there till my return. I forbid you, in the most positive manner, to receive a single visit from Henry, or to open a letter from him. I not only request, but command you, neither by letter or by word to make any answer to _this_ letter, or to allude to the subject of it. By your strict compliance with these injunctions, I shall judge of your desire to enter upon a new course, and, save in the secret penitence of your heart, to discard the remembrance of the past.

"E. MIDDLETON."

Inclosed in this letter were the following notes:

"Do not go, I implore you; I forgive, and will bear with you,--_Thursday_."

"You left me in anger three days ago, and I feel a nervous dread of what will happen next. I cannot bear this suspense; write or come.--_Sunday_."

"I shall have no rest till I have seen you; since that woman is arrived, I feel as if all would be discovered.--_Friday_."

The chain of evidence against me was overpowering, and I clasped my hands in silent despair. I read Edward's letter upon my knees; and murmured blessings were choked in their utterance, by the convulsive emotion which mastered me. At that moment it seemed to me agony past endurance that he should accuse and judge me falsely; that he should call my love hypocrisy; I thought I would rather die, than meet him in the way he prescribed, as life could have no greater misery in store for me than this; but by degrees I grew conscious that there was not so heavy a load on my breast, so racking an anguish in my brain, as I had known in those hours when, tortured with anxiety, I had been commanded to smile; when, degraded in my own eyes, and condemned by my own heart, I had been placed by him on a pinnacle, from which I dreaded each moment to be hurled. His praises had often run like daggers into my heart; but now his reproaches, his upbraidings, were answered by the mute consciousness of a love, which in the midst of guilt and misery, and bitter humiliation, had remained pure, sacred, and entire. Then flashed for an instant through my mind, like a ray of light and hope, the thought of _confession_, full, ample, and complete confession! What depths of repose in that word! What pledge of peace! What renewal of confidence! What possibility of happiness! I rose suddenly and threw the window open; and as the cold air fanned my cheek, I felt that I might be happy still. Again I seized his letter, and as I opened it, my eyes fell on the pa.s.sage where he said, "If you are not perjured, if you have not called upon Almighty G.o.d to witness a lie." It froze in its current the source of hope, which for an instant had sprung up in my breast, for it reminded me of the oath by which I had bound myself never to reveal the truth to Edward. It was as if a hand of ice had chilled the warm blood that had begun to circulate freely about my heart. I set my teeth together, and muttered to myself that I would break that fatal oath; but even while I said it, I felt I dared not do it. I needed all my strength, all my courage; I needed G.o.d's help, and G.o.d's mercy, even now to confess to Edward the dreadful secret of my life, the horrible trials, the bitter humiliations I had gone through; and in the face of a broken oath, with the guilt of perjury on my soul, how could I hope for mercy or for peace? I struggled with my conscience; I bade it be silent; but in vain. This new form of crime staggered and confounded me; I dared not add fuel to the flame, or a new kind of remorse to the dark visions that already haunted my days, and visited my dreams. I gazed upon those blotted sc.r.a.ps of paper before me, the records of weakness and misery, but not of guilt; and the veins of my temple swelled, and my hands were clenched with powerless rage as I thought of the part which Henry had throughout acted by me, and of which this was the close. He had either betrayed me himself; or by a cruel carelessness, a heartless negligence, he had failed to destroy the proofs of our fatal intimacy, and had left them in the power of my _relentless_ enemy.

A servant came in, and putting down a letter on the table, he said, "Mr. Lovell has been very often to inquire after you, Ma'am, and he begs to know if he can see you now; or if he shall call again this afternoon."

I would have given worlds to have admitted Henry, to have poured forth in words the burning anger of my soul, or implored a release from my fatal oath; but Edward's command was before my eyes; his letter was in my hand; and I said, in as calm a voice as I could command, "Tell Mr. Lovell that I am engaged now, and that I shall not be at home this afternoon."

I glanced at the letter on the table, and saw that it was not from Henry, but from Mrs. Moore, who, with a thousand regrets and apologies for having been suddenly obliged to leave home for the sea-side, put her villa at my disposal, and hoped I would stay there as long as might suit me. This opened a new source of embarra.s.sment to me. I could not resolve with myself whether to accept this offer or to refuse it. If Henry was determined to force his visits upon me, I felt that I should be more unprotected at Hampstead, less able to exclude him there than in town, and yet I was afraid that Edward should suppose I was not prepared in everything to follow his directions. I determined at last to write to him that Mrs.

Moore had left Hampstead, and that I should therefore remain in town till I heard from him again, or till the blessed moment of his return. As I looked over my letter I seized the pen and scratched oat that word _blessed_, which he would have branded with hypocrisy. Never did a letter of a few lines cost such painful labour or such anxious thought as that I sent to Edward in return for his. Many and many a foul copy I wrote, in which protestations and prayers, self-accusations and pa.s.sionate justifications, succeeded each other with frantic vehemence; but as I read over these bursts of feeling, these impa.s.sioned appeals, I tore them up and gave them to the flames; for to disobey him _now_, was to endanger the frail tenure by which I clung to him, and, as he had said himself, to drive him from me; and yet to accept the conditions of pardon, to submit humbly to the terms held out to me, was a tacit admission of the truth of his accusations and of the justice of my condemnation.

At one moment I resolved to brave his anger; boldly and earnestly to declare to him my innocence, not from crime only, but from a feeling or a thought inconsistent with the truest and most ardent affection that ever woman felt, or man inspired; and, in defiance of his orders, but in the strictest integrity of heart, to seek Henry, and by prayers, by reproaches, by upbraidings, by all the power which a strong will, and the consciousness of his unconquerable pa.s.sion for me, could give, to obtain from him a release from my oath, and liberty to kneel at Edward's feet, and to clasp his knees, with a confession of every sin, but that of not loving him.

But then, again, I shrank from the rash efforts, from the fatal risks, which this plan involved, and it seemed to me best to submit in humble resignation to his will; to accept his mistaken severity, his coldness, and his scorn, as a just expiation for a course of sin and deceit; and to trust that, in a life spent by his side, in compliance with his will, in submission to his dictates, in absolute devotion, and unremitting tenderness, which my lips would never express, but which my conduct would reveal, I should at last have my reward--his belief in that love which could bear, believe, endure, and hope all things.

Tossed by these conflicting thoughts, jaded by this incessant and racking anxiety, at last I sent a few lines which I had copied out several times--for sometimes a word had seemed to me too cold, or too abrupt, too like, or too unlike those which were struggling to escape from my heart and from my pen, or else my tears had stained the paper.