"True, true! I had forgotten that."
"Look at all the circumstances. He haunts the house--according
to his own showing, persecutes her with attentions, which are so
marked, that, when he finds her husband ignorant of them, leads him
to the conclusion--which is natural--that they are not displeasing
to the wife. He avails himself of the privileges of the waltz, at
the marriage of Mrs. Delaney, to gratify his lustful anticipations.
He presses her arm and waist with his d----d fingers. Rides home
with her, and, according to his story, takes other liberties,
which she baffles and sets aside. But, mark the truth. Though she
requires him to set her down in the street--though she makes terms
for his forbearance--a wife making terms with a libertine--yet
he evidently sees her into the house, and when she is taken sick,
hurries for the mother and the physician. He tells just enough of
the story to convict himself, but suppresses everything which may
convict her. How know I that this resistance in the carriage was
more than a sham? How know I that he did not attend her in the house?
That they did not dabble together on their way through the dark
piazza--along the stairs?--Nay, what proof is there that he did not
find his way, with polluting purpose, into the very chamber?--that
chamber, from which, not three weeks after, she bade him fly to
avoid my wrath! What makes her so precious of his life--the life
of one who pursues her with lust and dishonor--if she does not burn
with like passions? But there is more."
Here I told him of the letter of Mrs. Delaney, in which that
permanent beldame counsels her daughter, less against the passion
itself, than against the imprudent exhibition of it. It was clear
that the mother had seen what had escaped my eyes. It was clear
that the mother was convinced of the attachment of the daughter
for this man. Now, the attachment being shown, what followed from
the concealment of the indignities to which Edgerton had subjected
her, but that she was pleased with them, and did not feel them
to be such. These indignities are persevered in--are frequently
repeated. Our footsteps are followed from one country to another.
The husband's hours of absence are noted. His departure is the
invariable signal for them to meet. They meet. His hands paddle
with hers; his arms grasp her waist. True, we are told by him, that
she resists; but it is natural that he should make this declaration.
Its truth is combated by the fact that, of these insults, SHE says
nothing. That fact is everything. That one fact involves all the
rest. The woman who conceals such a history, shares in the guilt.
Kingsley assented to these conclusions.
"Yet," he said, "there is an air of truthfulness about these
papers--this narrative--that I should be pleased to believe, even
if I could not;--that I should believe for your sake, Clifford,
if for no other reason. Honestly, after all you have said and
shown--with all the unexplained and perhaps unexplainable particulars
before me, making the appearances so much against her--I can not
think your wife guilty. I should be sorry to think so."