"You are cold to me, dear husband; ah! be not cold. I have narrowly
escaped from death. So they tell me--so I feel! Be not cold to
me. Let me not think that I am burdensome to you."
"Why should you think so, Julia?"
"Ah! your words answer your question, and speak for me. They are
so few--they have no warmth in them; and then, you leave me so
much, dear husband--why, why do you leave me?"
"You do not miss me much, Julia."
"Do I not! ah! you do me wrong. I miss nothing else but you. I
have all that I had when we were first married--all but my husband!"
"Do not deceive yourself, Julia; these fine speeches do not deceive
me. I am afraid that the love of woman is a very light thing. It
yields readily to the wind. It does not keep in one direction long,
any more than the vane on the house-top."
"You do NOT think so, Edward. Such is not MY love. Alas! I know
not how to make it known to you, husband, if it be not already
known; and yet it seems to me that you do not know it, or, if
you do, that you do not care much about it. You seem to care very
little whether I love you or not."
I exclaimed bitterly, and with the energy of deep feeling.
"Care little! I care little whether you love me or no! Psha!
Julia, you must think me a fool!"
It did seem to me a sort of mockery, knowing my feelings as I
did--knowing that all my folly and suffering came from the very
intensity of my passion--that I should be reproached, by its
object, with indifference! I forgot, that, as a cover for my
suspicion, I had been striving with all the industry of art to put
on the appearance of indifference. I did not give myself sufficient
credit for the degree of success with which I had labored, or I
might have suddenly arrived at the gratifying conclusion, that,
while I was impressed and suffering with the pangs of jealousy,
my wife was trembling with fear that she had for ever lost
my affections. My language, the natural utterance of my real
feelings, was not true to the character I had assumed. It filled
the countenance of the suffering woman with consternation. She
shrunk from me in terror. Her hand was withdrawn from my neck, as
she tremulously replied:-"Oh, do not speak to me in such tones. Do not look so harshly upon
me. What have I done?"
"Ay! ay!" I muttered, turning away.
She caught my hand.
"Do not go--do not leave me, and with such a look! Oh! husband,
I may not live long. I feel that I have had a very narrow escape
within these few days past. Do not kill me with cruel looks; with
words, that, if cruel from you, would sooner kill than the knife
in savage hands. Oh! tell me in what have I offended? What is it
you think? For what am I to blame? What do you doubt--suspect?"