"I would do both, Edward. God knows I care as little for mere
appearances, so long as the substances, are good, as you do; but I
confess I would not have the neighbors speak of me as the neglected
wife; i would not have you the subject of vulgar reproach."
"To what does all this tend?" I demanded impatiently.
"To nothing, Edward, if by speaking it I make you angry."
"Do not speak it, then!" was my stern reply.
"I will not; do not turn away--do not be angry:" here she sobbed
once, convulsively; but with an effort of which I had not thought
her capable, she stifled the painful utterance, and continued
grasping my wrist as she spoke with both her hands, and speaking
in a whisper-"You are not going to leave me in anger. Oh, no! Do not! Kiss
me, dear husband, and forgive me. If I have vexed you, it was only
because I was so selfishly anxious to keep you more with me--to be
more certain that you are all my own!"
I escaped from this scene with some difficulty. I should be doing
my own heart, blind and wilful as it was, a very gross injustice,
if I did not confess that the sincere and natural deportment of
Julia had rendered me largely doubtful of the good sense or the
good feeling of the course I was pursuing. But the effects of it
were temporary only. The very feeling, thus forced upon me, that I
was, and had been, doing wrong, was a humiliating one; and calculated
rather to sustain my self-esteem, even though it lessened the
amount of justification which my jealousy may have supposed itself
possessed of. The disease had been growing too long within my
bosom. It had taken too deep root--had spread its fibres into a
region too rank and stimulating not to baffle any ordinary diligence
on the part of the extirpator, even if he had been industrious and
sincere. It had been growing with my growth, had shared my strength
from the beginning, was a part of my very existence! Still, though
not with that hearty fondness which her feeling demanded, I returned
her caresses, folded her to my bosom, kissed the tears from her
cheek, and half promised myself, though I said nothing of this to
her, that I would attend her to the picture exhibition.
But I did not. Half an hour before the appointed time I resolved to
do so; but the evil spirit grew uppermost in that brief interval,
and suggested to me a course more in unison with its previous counsellings.
Under this mean prompting I prepared to go to the gallery, but not
till my wife had already gone there under Edgerton's escort. The
object of this afterthought was to surprise them there--to enter at
the unguarded moment, and read the language of their mutual eyes,
when they least apprehended such scrutiny.