The shapeless character of my fears and suspicions did not by any
means lessen their force and volume. On the contrary it caused
them to loom out through the hazy atmosphere of the imagination,
assuming aspects more huge and terrible, in consequence of their
very indistinctness; as the phantom shapes along the mountains of
the Brocken, gathering and scowling in the morning or the evening
twilight. To obtain more precise knowledge--to be able to subject
to grasp and measure the uncertain phantoms which I feared--was,
if not to reduce their proportions, at least to rid me of that
excruciating suspense, in determining what to do, which was the
natural result of my present ignorance.
With some painstaking, I was enabled to find and force an interview
with Edgerton that very day. He made an effort to elude me--such
an effort as he could make without allowing his object to be seen.
But I was not to be baffled. Having once determined upon my course,
I was a puritan in the inveteracy with which I persevered in it.
But it required no small struggle to approach the criminal, and
so utterly to subdue my own sense of wrong, my suspicions and my
hostility, as to keep in sight no more than the wishes and fears of
the father. I have already boasted of my strength in some respects,
even while exposing my weaknesses in others. That I could persuade
Edgerton and my wife, equally, of my indifference, even at the
moment when I was most agonized by my doubts of their purity, is
a sufficient proof that I possessed a certain sort of strength. It
was a moral strength, too, which could conceal the pangs inflicted
by the vulture, even when it was preying upon the vitals of the
best affections and the dearest hopes of the heart. It was necessary
that I should put all this strength in requisition, as well to do
what was required by the father, as to pierce, with keen eye, and
considerate question, to the secret soul of the witness. I must
assume the blandest manner of our youthful friendship; I must say
kind things, and say them with a certain frank unconsciousness. I
must use the language of a good fellow--a sworn companion--who is
anxious to do justice to my friend's father, and yet had no notion
that my friend himself was doing the smallest thing to justify the
unmeasured fears of the fond old man. Such was my cue at first. I
am not so sure that I pursued it to the end; but of this hereafter.
My attention having been specially drawn to the personal appearance
of William Edgerton, I was surprised, if not absolutely shocked,
to see that the father had scarcely exaggerated the misery of his
condition. He was the mere shadow of his former self. His limbs,
only a year before, had been rounded even to plumpness. They were
now sharp and angular. His skin was pale, his looks haggard; and
that apprehensive shrinking of the eye, which had called forth
the most keen expressions of fear and suspicion from the father's
lips, was the prominent characteristic which commanded my attention
during our brief interview. His eye, after the first encounter,
no longer rose to mine. Keenly did I watch his face, though for an
instant only. A sudden hectic flush mantled its paleness. I could
perceive a nervous muscular movement about his mouth, and he slightly
started when I spoke.