"But, do not leave me another time--not so long, Edward Do not leave
me alone. Your business is one thing. THAT you must, of course,
attend to; but hours--not of business--hours in which you do no
business--hours of leisure--your evenings, Edward--these you must
share with me--you must give to me entirely. Ah! will you not? will
you not promise me?"
These were among the last words which she spoke to me ere we slept
that night. The next morning, almost at awaking, she resumed the
same language. I could not help perceiving that she spoke in tones
of greater earnestness than usual--an earnestness expressive of
anxiety for which I felt at some loss to account. Still, the tenor
of what she said, at the time, gave me pleasure--a satisfaction
which I did not seek to conceal, and which, while it lasted, was
the sweetest of all pleasures to my soul. But the busy devil in my
heart made his suggestions also, which were of a kind to produce
any other but satisfying emotions. While I stood in my wife's
presence--in the hearing of her angel-voice, and beholding the pure
spirit speaking out from her eyes--he lay dormant, rebuked, within
his prison-house, crouching in quiet, waiting a more auspicious
moment for activity. Nor was he long in waiting; and then his cold,
insinuating doubts--his inquiries--begot and startled mine!
"Very good--all very good!" Such was the tone of his suggestions."
She may well compound for the evenings with you, since she gives
her whole mornings to your rival."
Archimedes asked but little for the propulsion of the world. The
jealous spirit--a spirit jealous like mine--asks still for the
moving of that little but densely-populous world, the human heart.
I forgot the sweet tones of my wife's words--the pure-souled words
themselves--tones and words which, while their sounds yet lingered
in my ears, I could not have questioned--I did not dare to question.
The tempter grew in the ascendant the moment I had passed out of
her sight; and when I met William Edgerton the next day, he acquired
greatly-increased power over my understanding.
William Edgerton had evidently undergone a change. He no longer met
my glances boldly with his own. Perhaps, had he done so, my eyes
would have been the first to shrink from the encounter. He looked
down, or looked aside, when he spoke to me; his words were few,
timorous, hesitating, but studiously conciliatory; and he lingered
no longer in my presence than was absolutely unavoidable. Was there
not a consciousness in this? and what consciousness? The devil at
my heart answered, and answered with truth, "He loves your wife."
It would have been well, perhaps, had the cruel fiend said nothing
farther. Alas! I would have pardoned, nay, pitied William Edgerton,
had the same chuckling spirit not assured me that she also was not
insensible to him. I was continually reminded of the words, "Your
business must, of course, be attended to!"