the same canary that I had seen my wife playing with, on the evening of
the day when I first met her). The bird’s head had been nearly dragged
through the bent wires of the cage, by the murderous claws of the cat.
Near the fire-place, with the poker she had just dropped on the floor by
her side, stood Margaret. Never had I seen her look so beautiful as
she now appeared, in the fury of passion which possessed her. Her
large black eyes were flashing grandly through her tears--the blood was
glowing crimson in her cheeks--her lips were parted as she gasped for
breath. One of her hands was clenched, and rested on the mantel-piece;
the other was pressed tight over her bosom, with the fingers
convulsively clasping her dress. Grieved as I was at the paroxysm of
passion into which she had allowed herself to be betrayed, I could not
repress an involuntary feeling of admiration when my eyes first rested
on her. Even anger itself looked lovely in that lovely face!
She never moved when she saw me. As I approached her, she dropped down
on her knees by the cage, sobbing with frightful violence, and pouring
forth a perfect torrent of ejaculations of vengeance against the cat.
Mrs. Sherwin came down; and by her total want of tact and presence
of mind, made matters worse. In brief, the scene ended by a fit of
hysterics.
To speak to Margaret on that day, as I wished to speak to her, was
impossible. To approach the subject of the canary’s death afterwards,
was useless. If I only hinted in the gentlest way, and with the
strongest sympathy for the loss of the bird, at the distress and
astonishment she had caused me by the extremities to which she had
allowed her passion to hurry her, a burst of tears was sure to be her
only reply--just the reply, of all others, which was best calculated to
silence me. If I had been her husband in fact, as well as in name; if I
had been her father, her brother, or her friend, I should have let
her first emotions have their way, and then have expostulated with her
afterwards. But I was her lover still; and, to my eyes, Margaret’s tears
made virtues even of Margaret’s faults.
Such occurrences as these, happening but at rare intervals, formed
the only interruptions to the generally even and happy tenour of our
intercourse. Weeks and weeks glided away, and not a hasty or a hard word
passed between us. Neither, after one preliminary difference had been
adjusted, did any subsequent disagreement take place between Mr. Sherwin
and me. This last element in the domestic tranquillity of North Villa
was, however, less attributable to his forbearance, or to mine, than to
the private interference of Mr. Mannion.
For some days after my interview with the managing clerk, at his
own house, I had abstained from calling his offered services into
requisition. I was not conscious of any reason for this course of
conduct. All that had been said, all that had happened during the night
of the storm, had produced a powerful, though vague impression on me.
Strange as it may appear, I could not determine whether my brief but
extraordinary experience of my new friend had attracted me towards him,
or repelled me from him. I felt an unwillingness to lay myself under an
obligation to him, which was not the result of pride, or false delicacy,
or sullenness, or suspicion--it was an inexplicable unwillingness, that
sprang from the fear of encountering some heavy responsibility; but of
what nature I could not imagine. I delayed and held back, by instinct;
and, on his side, Mr. Mannion made no further advances. He maintained
the same manner, and continued the same habits, during his intercourse
with the family at North Villa, which I had observed as characterising
him before I took shelter from the storm, in his house. He never
referred again to the conversation of that evening, when we now met.
Margaret’s behaviour, when I mentioned to her Mr. Mannion’s willingness
to be useful to us both, rather increased than diminished the vague
uncertainties which perplexed me, on the subject of accepting or
rejecting his overtures.
I could not induce her to show the smallest interest about him. Neither
his house, his personal appearance, his peculiar habits, or his secrecy
in relation to his early life--nothing, in short, connected with
him--appeared to excite her attention or curiosity in the slightest
degree. On the evening of his return from the continent, she had
certainly shown some symptoms of interest in his arrival at North Villa,
and some appearance of attention to him, when he joined our party. Now,
she seemed completely and incomprehensibly changed on this point. Her
manner became almost petulant, if I persisted long in making Mr. Mannion
a topic of conversation--it was as if she resented his sharing my
thoughts with her in the slightest degree. As to the difficult question
whether we should engage him in our interests or not, that was a matter
which she always seemed to think too trifling to be discussed between us
at all.
Ere long, however, circumstances decided me as to the course I should
take with Mr. Mannion.
A ball was given by one of Mr. Sherwin’s rich commercial friends,
to which he announced his intention of taking Margaret. Besides the
jealousy which I felt--naturally enough, in my peculiar situation--at
the idea of my wife going out as Miss Sherwin, and dancing in the
character of a young unmarried lady with any young gentlemen who were
introduced to her, I had also the strongest possible desire to keep
Margaret out of the society of her own class, until my year’s probation
was over, and I could hope to instal her permanently in the society of
my class. I had privately mentioned to her my ideas on this subject, and
found that she fully agreed with them. She was not wanting in ambition
to ascend to the highest degree in the social scale; and had already
begun to look with indifference on the society which was offered to her
by those in her own rank.
To Mr. Sherwin I could confide nothing of this. I could only object,
generally, to his taking Margaret out, when neither she nor I desired
it. He declared that she liked parties--that all girls did--that she
only pretended to dislike them, to please me--and that he had made no
engagement to keep her moping at home a whole year on my account. In the
case of the particular ball now under discussion, he was determined to
have his own way; and he bluntly told me as much.
Irritated by his obstinacy and gross want of consideration for my
defenceless position, I forgot all doubts and scruples; and privately
applied to Mr. Mannion to exert the influence which he had promised to
use, if I wished it, in my behalf.
The result was as immediate as it was conclusive. The very next evening,
Mr. Sherwin came to us with a note which he had just written, and
informed me that it was an excuse for Margaret’s non-appearance at the
ball. He never mentioned Mr. Mannion’s name, but sulkily and shortly
said, that he had reconsidered the matter, and had altered his first
decision for reasons of his own.
Having once taken a first step in the new direction, I soon followed it
up, without hesitation, by taking many others. Whenever I wished to call
oftener than once a-day at North Villa, I had but to tell Mr. Mannion,
and the next morning I found the permission immediately accorded to me
by the ruling power. The same secret machinery enabled me to regulate
Mr. Sherwin’s incomings and outgoings, just as I chose, when Margaret
and I were together in the evening. I could feel almost certain, now,
of never having any one with us, but Mrs. Sherwin, unless I desired
it--which, as may be easily imagined, was seldom enough.
My new ally’s ready interference for my advantage was exerted quietly,
easily, and as a matter of course. I never knew how, or when, he
influenced his employer, and Mr. Sherwin on his part, never breathed a
word of that influence to me. He accorded any extra privilege I might
demand, as if he acted entirely under his own will, little suspecting
how well I knew what was the real motive power which directed him.
I was the more easily reconciled to employing the services of Mr.
Mannion, by the great delicacy with which he performed them. He did
not allow me to think--he did not appear to think himself--that he was
obliging me in the smallest degree. He affected no sudden intimacy with
me; his manners never altered; he still persisted in not joining us in
the evening, but at my express invitation; and if I referred in any way
to the advantages I derived from his devotion to my interests, he always
replied in his brief undemonstrative way, that he considered himself the
favoured person, in being permitted to make his services of some use to
Margaret and me.
I had told Mr. Mannion, when I was leaving him on the night of the
storm, that I would treat his offers as the offers of a friend; and I
had now made good my words, much sooner and much more unreservedly than
I had ever intended, when we parted at his own house-door.
V.
The autumn was now over; the winter--a cold, gloomy winter--had fairly
come. Five months had nearly elapsed since Clara and my father had
departed for the country. What communication did I hold with them,
during that interval?
No personal communication with either--written communication only with
my sister. Clara’s letters to me were frequent. They studiously avoided
anything like a reproach for my long absence; and were confined almost
exclusively to such details of country life as the writer thought likely
to interest me. Their tone was as affectionate--nay, more affectionate,
if possible--than usual; but Clara’s gaiety and quiet humour, as a
correspondent, were gone. My conscience taught me only too easily and
too plainly how to account for this change--my conscience told me
who had altered the tone of my sister’s letters, by altering all the
favourite purposes and favourite pleasures of her country life.
I was selfishly enough devoted to my own passions and my own interests,
at this period of my life; but I was not so totally dead to every one
of the influences which had guided me since childhood, as to lose
all thought of Clara and my father, and the ancient house that was
associated with my earliest and happiest recollections. Sometimes, even
in Margaret’s beloved presence, a thought of Clara put away from me
all other thoughts. And, sometimes, in the lonely London house, I
dreamed--with the strangest sleeping oblivion of my marriage, and of all
the new interests which it had crowded into my life--of country rides
with my sister, and of quiet conversations in the old gothic library
at the Hall. Under such influences as these, I twice resolved to make
amends for my long absence, by joining my father and my sister in the
country, even though it were only for a few days--and, each time, I
failed in my resolution. On the second occasion, I had actually mustered
firmness enough to get as far as the railway station; and only at the
last moment faltered and hung back. The struggle that it cost me to
part for any length of time from Margaret, I had overcome; but the
apprehension, as vivid as it was vague, that something--I knew not
what--might happen to her in my absence, turned my steps backward at
starting. I felt heartily ashamed of my own weakness; but I yielded to
it nevertheless.
At last, a letter arrived from Clara, containing a summons to the
country, which I could not disobey.
“I have never asked you,” she wrote, “to come and see us for my sake;
for I would not interfere with any of your interests or any of your
plans; but I now ask you to come here for your own sake--just for one
week, and no more, unless you like to remain longer. You remember papa
telling you, in your room in London, that he believed you kept some
secret from him. I am afraid this is preying on his mind: your long
absence is making him uneasy about you. He does not say so; but he never
sends any message, when I write; and if I speak about you, he always
changes the subject directly. Pray come here, and show yourself for a
few days--no questions will be asked, you may be sure. It will do so
much good; and will prevent--what I hope and pray may never happen--a
serious estrangement between papa and you. Recollect, Basil, in a month
or six weeks we shall come back to town; and then the opportunity will
be gone.”
As I read these lines, I determined to start for the country at once,
while the effect of them was still fresh on my mind. Margaret, when
I took leave of her, only said that she should like to be going with
me--“it would be such a sight for her, to see a grand country house like
ours!” Mr. Sherwin laughed as coarsely as usual, at the difficulties
I made about only leaving his daughter for a week. Mrs. Sherwin very
earnestly, and very inaccountably as I then thought, recommended me not
to be away any longer than I had proposed. Mr. Mannion privately assured
me, that I might depend on him in my absence from North Villa, exactly
as I had always depended on him, during my presence there. It was
strange that his parting words should be the only words which soothed
and satisfied me on taking leave of London.
The winter afternoon was growing dim with the evening darkness, as I
drove up to the Hall. Snow on the ground, in the country, has always
a cheerful look to me. I could have wished to see it on the day of my
arrival at home; but there had been a thaw for the last week--mud and
water were all about me--a drizzling rain was falling--a raw, damp wind
was blowing--a fog was rising, as the evening stole on--and the ancient
leafless elms in the park avenue groaned and creaked above my head
drearily, as I approached the house.
My father received me with more ceremony than I liked. I had known, from
a boy, what it meant when he chose to be only polite to his own son.
What construction he had put on my long absence and my persistence in
keeping my secret from him, I could not tell; but it was evident that
I had lost my usual place in his estimation, and lost it past regaining
merely by a week’s visit. The estrangement between us, which my sister
had feared, had begun already.
I had been chilled by the desolate aspect of nature, as I approached the
Hall; my father’s reception of me, when I entered the house, increased
the comfortless and melancholy impressions produced on my mind; it
required all the affectionate warmth of Clara’s welcome, all the
pleasure of hearing her whisper her thanks, as she kissed me, for my
readiness in following her advice, to restore my equanimity. But even
then, when the first hurry and excitement of meeting had passed away, in
spite of her kind words and looks, there was something in her face which
depressed me. She seemed thinner, and her constitutional paleness was
more marked than usual. Cares and anxieties had evidently oppressed
her--was I the cause of them?
The dinner that evening proceeded very heavily and gloomily. My father
only talked on general and commonplace topics, as if a mere acquaintance
had been present. When my sister left us, he too quitted the room, to
see some one who had arrived on business. I had no heart for the company
of the wine bottles, so I followed Clara.
At first, we only spoke of her occupations since she had been in the
country; I was unwilling, and she forbore, to touch on my long stay in
London, or on my father’s evident displeasure at my protracted absence.
There was a little restraint between us, which neither had the courage
to break through. Before long, however, an accident, trifling enough
in itself, obliged me to be more candid; and enabled her to speak
unreservedly on the subject nearest to her heart.
I was seated opposite to Clara, at the fire-place, and was playing
with a favourite dog which had followed me into the room. While I was
stooping towards the animal, a locket containing some of Margaret’s
hair, fell out of its place in my waistcoat, and swung towards my sister
by the string which attached it round my neck. I instantly hid it again;
but not before Clara, with a woman’s quickness, had detected the trinket
as something new, and drawn the right inference, as to the use to which
I devoted it.
An expression of surprise and pleasure passed over her face; she rose,
and putting her hands on my shoulders, as if to keep me still in the
place I occupied, looked at me intently.
“Basil!” she exclaimed, “if that is all the secret you have been keeping
from us, how glad I am! When I see a new locket drop out of my brother’s
waistcoat--” she continued, observing that I was too confused to
speak--“and when I find him colouring very deeply, and hiding it again
in a great hurry, I should be no true woman if I did not make my own
discoveries, and begin to talk about them directly.”
I made an effort--a very poor one--to laugh the thing off. Her
expression grew serious and thoughtful, while she still fixed her eyes
on me. She took my hand gently, and whispered in my ear: “Are you going
to be married, Basil? Shall I love my new sister almost as much as I
love you?”
At that moment the servant came in with tea. The interruption gave me
a minute for consideration. Should I tell her all? Impulse answered,
yes--reflection, no. If I disclosed my real situation, I knew that I
must introduce Clara to Margaret. This would necessitate taking her
privately to Mr. Sherwin’s house, and exposing to her the humiliating
terms of dependence and prohibition on which I lived with my own wife. A
strange medley of feelings, in which pride was uppermost, forbade me
to do that. Then again, to involve my sister in my secret, would be to
involve her with me in any consequences which might be produced by
its disclosure to my father. The mere idea of making her a partaker in
responsibilities which I alone ought to bear, was not to be entertained
for a moment. As soon as we were left together again, I said to her:
“Will you not think the worse of me, Clara, if I leave you to draw your
own conclusions from what you have seen? only asking you to keep strict
silence on the subject to every one. I can’t speak yet, love, as I
wish to speak: you will know why, some day, and say that my reserve was
right. In the meantime, can you be satisfied with the assurance, that
when the time comes for making my secret known, you shall be the first
to know it--the first I put trust in?”
“As you have not starved my curiosity altogether,” said Clara, smiling,
“but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present, I think,
woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously, Basil,” she
continued, “that telltale locket of yours has so pleasantly brightened
some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you, that I can now live happily
on expectation, without once mentioning your secret again, till you give
me leave to do so.”
Here my father entered the room, and we said no more. His manner towards
me had not altered since dinner; and it remained the same during the
week of my stay at the Hall. One morning, when we were alone, I took
courage, and determined to try the dangerous ground a little, with a
view towards my guidance for the future; but I had no sooner begun by
some reference to my stay in London, and some apology for it, than he
stopped me at once.
“I told you,” he said, gravely and coldly, “some months ago, that I had
too much faith in your honour to intrude on affairs which you choose
to keep private. Until you have perfect confidence in me, and can speak
with complete candour, I will hear nothing. You have not that confidence
now--you speak hesitatingly--your eyes do not meet mine fairly and
boldly. I tell you again, I will hear nothing which begins with such
common-place excuses as you have just addressed to me. Excuses lead to
prevarications, and prevarications to--what I will not insult you by
imagining possible in _your_ case. You are of age, and must know your
own responsibilities and mine. Choose at once, between saying nothing,
and saying all.”
He waited a moment after he had spoken, and then quitted the room. If
he could only have known how I suffered, at that instant, under the base
necessities of concealment, I might have confessed everything; and he
must have pitied, though he might not have forgiven me.
This was my first and last attempt at venturing towards the revelation
of my secret to my father, by hints and half-admissions. As to boldly
confessing it, I persuaded myself into a sophistical conviction that
such a course could do no good, but might do much harm. When the wedded
happiness I had already waited for, and was to wait for still, through
so many months, came at last, was it not best to enjoy my married
life in convenient secrecy, as long as I could?--best, to abstain from
disclosing my secret to my father, until necessity absolutely obliged,
or circumstances absolutely invited me to do so? My inclinations
conveniently decided the question in the affirmative; and a decision of
any kind, right or wrong, was enough to tranquillise me at that time.
So far as my father was concerned, my journey to the country did no
good. I might have returned to London the day after my arrival at the
Hall, without altering his opinion of me--but I stayed the whole week
nevertheless, for Clara’s sake.
In spite of the pleasure afforded by my sister’s society, my visit was a
painful one. The selfish longing to be back with Margaret, which I could
not wholly repress; my father’s coldness; and the winter gloom and rain
which confined us almost incessantly within doors, all tended in their
different degrees to prevent my living at ease in the Hall. But, besides
these causes of embarrassment, I had the additional mortification of
feeling, for the first time, as a stranger in my own home.
Nothing in the house looked to me what it used to look in former years.
The rooms, the old servants, the walks and views, the domestic animals,
all appeared to have altered, or to have lost something, since I had
seen them last. Particular rooms that I had once been fond of occupying,
were favourites no longer: particular habits that I had hitherto always
practised in the country, I could only succeed in resuming by an effort
which vexed and fretted me. It was as if my life had run into a new
channel since my last autumn and winter at the Hall, and now refused to
flow back at my bidding into its old course. Home seemed home no longer,
except in name.
As soon as the week was over, my father and I parted exactly as we had
met. When I took leave of Clara, she refrained from making any allusion
to the shortness of my stay; and merely said that we should soon meet
again in London. She evidently saw that my visit had weighed a little
on my spirits, and was determined to give to our short farewell as happy
and hopeful a character as possible. We now thoroughly understood each
other; and that was some consolation on leaving her.
Immediately on my return to London I repaired to North Villa.
Nothing, I was told, had happened in my absence, but I remarked some
change in Margaret. She looked pale and nervous, and was more silent
than I had ever known her to be before, when we met. She accounted
for this, in answer to my inquiries, by saying that confinement to the
house, in consequence of the raw, wintry weather, had a little affected
her; and then changed the subject. In other directions, household
aspects had not deviated from their accustomed monotony. As usual, Mrs.
Sherwin was at her post in the drawing-room; and her husband was reading
the evening paper, over his renowned old port, in the dining-room. After
the first five minutes of my arrival, I adapted myself again to my old
way of life at Mr. Sherwin’s, as easily as if I had never interrupted
it for a single day. Henceforth, wherever my young wife was, there, and
there only, would it be home for _me!_
Late in the evening, Mr. Mannion arrived with some business letters for
Mr. Sherwin’s inspection. I sent for him into the hall to see me, as I
was going away. His hand was never a warm one; but as I now took it, on
greeting him, it was so deadly cold that it literally chilled mine for
the moment. He only congratulated me, in the usual terms, on my safe
return; and said that nothing had taken place in my absence--but in his
utterance of those few words, I discovered, for the first time, a change
in his voice: his tones were lower, and his articulation quicker than
usual. This, joined to the extraordinary coldness of his hand, made
me inquire whether he was unwell. Yes, he too had been ill while I was
away--harassed with hard work, he said. Then apologising for leaving me
abruptly, on account of the letters he had brought with him, he returned
to Mr. Sherwin, in the dining-room, with a greater appearance of hurry
in his manner than I had ever remarked in it on any former occasion.
I had left Margaret and Mr. Mannion both well--I returned, and found
them both ill. Surely this was something that had taken place in my
absence, though they all said that nothing had happened. But trifling
illnesses seemed to be little regarded at North Villa--perhaps, because
serious illness was perpetually present there, in the person of Mrs.
Sherwin.
VI.
About six weeks after I had left the Hall, my father and Clara returned
to London for the season.
It is not my intention to delay over my life either at home or at North
Villa, during the spring and summer. This would be merely to repeat much
of what has been already related. It is better to proceed at once to the
closing period of my probation; to a period which it taxes my resolution
severely to write of at all. A few weeks more of toil at my narrative,
and the penance of this poor task-work will be over.
* * * * * *
Imagine then, that the final day of my long year of expectation has
arrived; and that on the morrow, Margaret, for whose sake I have
sacrificed and suffered so much, is at last really to be mine.
On the eve of the great change in my life that was now to take place,
the relative positions in which I, and the different persons with whom I
was associated, stood towards each other, may be sketched thus:--
My father’s coldness of manner had not altered since his return to
London. On my side, I carefully abstained from uttering a word before
him, which bore the smallest reference to my real situation. Although
when we met, we outwardly preserved the usual relations of parent and
child, the estrangement between us had now become complete.
Clara did not fail to perceive this, and grieved over it in secret.
Other and happier feelings, however, became awakened within her, when I
privately hinted that the time for disclosing my secret to my sister was
not far off. She grew almost as much agitated as I was, though by
very different expectations--she could think of nothing else but the
explanation and the surprise in store for her. Sometimes, I almost
feared to keep her any longer in suspense; and half regretted having
said anything on the subject of the new and absorbing interest of my
life, before the period when I could easily have said all.
Mr. Sherwin and I had not latterly met on the most cordial terms. He was
dissatisfied with me for not having boldly approached the subject of my
marriage in my father’s presence; and considered my reasons for still
keeping it secret, as dictated by morbid apprehension, and as showing a
total want of proper firmness. On the other hand, he was obliged to set
against this omission on my part, the readiness I had shown in meeting
his wishes on all remaining points. My life was insured in Margaret’s
favour; and I had arranged to be called to the bar immediately, so as
to qualify myself in good time for every possible place within
place-hunting range. My assiduity in making these preparations for
securing Margaret’s prospects and mine against any evil chances that
might happen, failed in producing the favourable effect on Mr. Sherwin,
which they must assuredly have produced on a less selfish man. But they
obliged him, at least, to stop short at occasional grumblings about
my reserve with my father, and to maintain towards me a sort of
sulky politeness, which was, after all, less offensive than the usual
infliction of his cordiality, with its unfailing accompaniment of dull
stories and duller jokes.
During the spring and summer, Mrs. Sherwin appeared to grow feebler
and feebler, from continued ill-health. Occasionally, her words and
actions--especially in her intercourse with me--suggested fears that her
mind was beginning to give way, as well as her body. For instance, on
one occasion, when Margaret had left the room for a minute or two,
she suddenly hurried up to me, whispering with eager looks and anxious
tones:--“Watch over your wife--mind you watch over her, and keep all bad
people from her! _I’ve_ tried to do it--mind _you_ do it, too!” I asked
immediately for an explanation of this extraordinary injunction; but
she only answered by muttering something about a mother’s anxieties, and
then returned hastily to her place. It was impossible to induce her to
be more explicit, try how I might.
Margaret once or twice occasioned me much perplexity and distress, by
certain inconsistencies and variations in her manner, which began to
appear shortly after my return to North Villa from the country. At one
time, she would become, on a sudden, strangely sullen and silent--at
another, irritable and capricious. Then, again, she would abruptly
change to the most affectionate warmth of speech and demeanour,
anxiously anticipating every wish I could form, eagerly showing her
gratitude for the slightest attentions I paid her. These unaccountable
alterations of manner vexed and irritated me indescribably. I
loved Margaret too well to be able to look philosophically on the
imperfections of her character; I knew of no cause given by me for
the frequent changes in her conduct, and, if they only proceeded
from coquetry, then coquetry, as I once told her, was the last female
accomplishment that could charm me in any woman whom I really loved.
However, these causes of annoyance and regret--her caprices, and my
remonstrances--all passed happily away, as the term of my engagement
with Mr. Sherwin approached its end, Margaret’s better and lovelier
manner returned. Occasionally, she might betray some symptoms of
confusion, some evidences of unusual thoughtfulness--but I remembered
how near was the day of the emancipation of our love, and looked on
her embarrassment as a fresh charm, a new ornament to the beauty of my
maiden wife.
Mr. Mannion continued--as far as attention to my interests went--to be
the same ready and reliable friend as ever; but he was, in some other
respects, an altered man. The illness of which he had complained months
back, when I returned to London, seemed to have increased. His face was
still the same impenetrable face which had so powerfully impressed
me when I first saw him, but his manner, hitherto so quiet and
self-possessed, had now grown abrupt and variable. Sometimes, when he
joined us in the drawing-room at North Villa, he would suddenly stop
before we had exchanged more than three or four words, murmur something,
in a voice unlike his usual voice, about an attack of spasm and
giddiness, and leave the room. These fits of illness had something in
their nature of the same secrecy which distinguished everything else
connected with him: they produced no external signs of distortion,
no unusual paleness in his face--you could not guess what pain he was
suffering, or where he was suffering it. Latterly, I abstained from ever
asking him to join us; for the effect on Margaret of his sudden attacks
of illness was, naturally, such as to discompose her seriously for the
remainder of the evening. Whenever I saw him accidentally, at later
periods of the year, the influence of the genial summer season appeared
to produce no alteration for the better in him. I remarked that his cold
hand, which had chilled me when I took it on the raw winter night of my
return from the country, was as cold as ever, on the warm summer days
which preceded the close of my engagement at North Villa.
Such was the posture of affairs at home, and at Mr. Sherwin’s, when I
went to see Margaret for the last time in my old character, on the last
night which yet remained to separate us from each other.
I had been all day preparing for our reception, on the morrow, in a
cottage which I had taken for a month, in a retired part of the country,
at some distance from London. One month’s unalloyed happiness with
Margaret, away from the world and all worldly considerations, was the
Eden upon earth towards which my dearest hope and anticipations had
pointed for a whole year past--and now, now at last, those aspirations
were to be realized! All my arrangements at the cottage were completed
in time to allow me to return home, just before our usual late dinner
hour. During the meal, I provided for my month’s absence from London, by
informing my father that I proposed visiting one of my country friends.
He heard me as coldly and indifferently as usual; and, as I anticipated,
did not even ask to what friend’s house I was going. After dinner, I
privately informed Clara that on the morrow, before starting, I
would, in accordance with my promise, make her the depositary of my
long-treasured secret--which, as yet, was not to be divulged to any one
besides. This done, I hurried away, between nine and ten o’clock, for
a last half-hour’s visit to North Villa; hardly able to realise my own
situation, or to comprehend the fulness and exaltation of my own joy.
A disappointment was in store for me. Margaret was not in the house; she
had gone out to an evening party, given by a maiden aunt of hers, who
was known to be very rich, and was, accordingly, a person to be courted
and humoured by the family.
I was angry as well as disappointed at what had taken place. To
send Margaret out, on this evening of all others, showed a want of
consideration towards both of us, which revolted me. Mr. and Mrs.
Sherwin were in the room when I entered; and to _him_ I spoke my opinion
on the subject, in no very conciliatory terms. He was suffering from a
bad attack of headache, and a worse attack of ill-temper, and answered
as irritably as he dared.
“My good Sir!” he said, in sharp, querulous tones, “do, for once, allow
me to know what’s best. You’ll have it all _your_ way to-morrow--just
let me have _mine,_ for the last time, to-night. I’m sure you’ve been
humoured often enough about keeping Margaret away from parties--and we
should have humoured you this time, too; but a second letter came from
the old lady, saying she should be affronted if Margaret wasn’t one of
her guests. I couldn’t go and talk her over, because of this infernal
headache of mine--Hang it! it’s your interest that Margaret should keep
in with her aunt; she’ll have all the old girl’s money, if she only
plays her cards decently well. That’s why I sent her to the party--her
going will be worth some thousands to both of you one of these days.
She’ll be back by half-past twelve, or before. Mannion was asked; and
though he’s all out of sorts, he’s gone to take care of her, and bring
her back. I’ll warrant she comes home in good time, when _he’s_ with
her. So you see there’s nothing to make a fuss about, after all.”
It was certainly a relief to hear that Mr. Mannion was taking care of
Margaret. He was, in my opinion, much fitter for such a trust than her
own father. Of all the good services he had done for me, I thought this
the best--but it would have been even better still, if he had prevented
Margaret from going to the party.
“I must say again,” resumed Mr. Sherwin, still more irritably, finding
I did not at once answer him, “there’s nothing that any reasonable
being need make a fuss about. I’ve been doing everything for Margaret’s
interests and yours--and she’ll be back by twelve--and Mr. Mannion takes
care of her--and I don’t know what you would have--and it’s devilish
hard, so ill as I am too, to cut up rough with me like this--devilish
hard!”
“I am sorry for your illness, Mr. Sherwin; and I don’t doubt your good
intentions, or the advantage of Mr. Mannion’s protection for Margaret;
but I feel disappointed, nevertheless, that she should have gone out
to-night.”
“I said she oughtn’t to go at all, whatever her aunt wrote--_I_ said
that.”
This bold speech actually proceeded from Mrs. Sherwin! I had never
before heard her utter an opinion in her husband’s presence--such an
outburst from _her,_ was perfectly inexplicable. She pronounced the
words with desperate rapidity, and unwonted power of tone, fixing her
eyes all the while on me with a very strange expression.
“Damn it, Mrs. S.!” roared her husband in a fury, “will you hold your
tongue? What the devil do you mean by giving _your_ opinion, when nobody
wants it? Upon my soul I begin to think you’re getting a little cracked.
You’ve been meddling and bothering lately, so that I don’t know what
the deuce has come to you! I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Basil,” he
continued, turning snappishly round upon me, “you had better stop that
fidgetty temper of yours, by going to the party yourself. The old lady
told me she wanted gentlemen; and would be glad to see any friends of
mine I liked to send her. You have only to mention my name: Mannion will
do the civil in the way of introduction. There! there’s an envelope
with the address to it--they won’t know who you are, or what you are, at
Margaret’s aunt’s--you’ve got your black dress things on, all right
and ready--for Heaven’s sake, go to the party yourself, and then I hope
you’ll be satisfied!”
Here he stopped; and vented the rest of his ill-humour by ringing the
bell violently for “his arrow-root,” and abusing the servant when she
brought it.
I hesitated about accepting his proposal. While I was in doubt, Mrs.
Sherwin took the opportunity, when her husband’s eye was off her, of
nodding her head at me significantly. She evidently wished me to join
Margaret at the party--but why? What did her behaviour mean?
It was useless to inquire. Long bodily suffering and weakness had but
too palpably produced a corresponding feebleness in her intellect. What
should I do? I was resolved to see Margaret that night; but to wait for
her between two and three hours, in company with her father and mother
at North Villa, was an infliction not to be endured. I determined to go
to the party. No one there would know anything about me. They would be
all people who lived in a different world from mine; and whose manners
and habits I might find some amusement in studying. At any rate, I
should spend an hour or two with Margaret, and could make it my own
charge to see her safely home. Without further hesitation, therefore
I took up the envelope with the address on it, and bade Mr. and Mrs.
Sherwin good-night.
It struck ten as I left North Villa. The moonlight which was just
beginning to shine brilliantly on my arrival there, now appeared but at
rare intervals; for the clouds were spreading thicker and thicker over
the whole surface of the sky, as the night advanced.
VII.
The address to which I was now proceeding, led me some distance away
from Mr. Sherwin’s place of abode, in the direction of the populous
neighbourhood which lies on the western side of the Edgeware Road. The
house of Margaret’s aunt was plainly enough indicated to me, as soon
as I entered the street where it stood, by the glare of light from the
windows, the sound of dance music, and the nondescript group of cabmen
and linkmen, with their little train of idlers in attendance, assembled
outside the door. It was evidently a very large party. I hesitated about
going in.
My sensations were not those which fit a man for exchanging conventional
civilities with perfect strangers; I felt that I showed outwardly the
fever of joy and expectation within me. Could I preserve my assumed
character of a mere friend of the family, in Margaret’s presence?--and
on this night too, of all others? It was far more probable that my
behaviour, if I went to the party, would betray everything to everybody
assembled. I determined to walk about in the neighbourhood of the house,
until twelve o’clock; and then to go into the hall, and send up my card
to Mr. Mannion, with a message on it, intimating that I was waiting
below to accompany him to North Villa with Margaret.
I crossed the street, and looked up again at the house from the pavement
opposite. Then lingered a little, listening to the music as it reached
me through the windows, and imagining to myself Margaret’s occupation
at that moment. After this, I turned away; and set forth eastward on my
walk, careless in which direction I traced my steps.
I felt little impatience, and no sense of fatigue; for in less than
two hours more I knew that I should see my wife again. Until then,
the present had no existence for me--I lived in the past and future.
I wandered indifferently along lonely bye-streets, and crowded
thoroughfares. Of all the sights which attend a night-walk in a great
city, not one attracted my notice. Uninformed and unobservant, neither
saddened nor startled, I passed through the glittering highways of
London. All sounds were silent to me save the love-music of my own
thoughts; all sights had vanished before the bright form that moved
through my bridal dream. Where was my world, at that moment? Narrowed to
the cottage in the country which was to receive us on the morrow. Where
were the beings in the world? All merged in one--Margaret.
Sometimes, my thoughts glided back, dreamily and voluptuously, to the
day when I first met her. Sometimes, I recalled the summer evenings when
we sat and read together out of the same book; and, once more, it was as
if I breathed with the breath, and hoped with the hopes, and longed with
the old longings of those days. But oftenest it was with the morrow that
my mind was occupied. The first dream of all young men--the dream of
living rapturously with the woman they love, in a secret retirement kept
sacred from friends and from strangers alike, was now my dream; to be
realised in a few hours, to be realised with my waking on the morning
which was already at hand!
For the last quarter of an hour of my walk, I must have been
unconsciously retracing my steps towards the house of Margaret’s aunt. I
came in sight of it again, just as the sound of the neighbouring church
clocks, striking eleven, roused me from my abstraction. More cabs were
in the street; more people were gathered about the door, by this time.
Was all this bustle, the bustle of arrival or of departure? Was the
party about to break up, at an hour when parties usually begin? I
determined to go nearer to the house, and ascertain whether the music
had ceased, or not.
I had approached close enough to hear the notes of the harp and
pianoforte still sounding as gaily as ever, when the house-door was
suddenly flung open for the departure of a lady and gentleman. The light
from the hall-lamps fell on their faces; and showed me Margaret and Mr.
Mannion.
Going home already! An hour and a half before it was time to return!
Why?
There could be but one reason. Margaret was thinking of me, and of what
I should feel if I called at North Villa, and had to wait for her till
past midnight. I ran forward to speak to them, as they descended the
steps; but exactly at the same moment, my voice was overpowered, and my
further progress barred, by a scuffle on the pavement among the people
who stood between us. One man said that his pocket had been picked;
others roared to him that they had caught the thief. There was a
fight--the police came up--I was surrounded on all sides by a shouting,
struggling mob that seemed to have gathered in an instant.
Before I could force myself out of the crowd, and escape into the road,
Margaret and Mr. Mannion had hurried into a cab. I just saw the vehicle
driving off rapidly, as I got free. An empty cab was standing near me--I
jumped into it directly--and told the man to overtake them. After having
waited my time so patiently, to let a mere accident stop me from going
home with them, as I had resolved, was not to be thought of for a
moment. I was hot and angry, after my contest with the crowd; and could
have flogged on the miserable cab-horse with my own hand, rather than
have failed in my purpose.
We were just getting closer behind them: I had just put my head out of
the window to call to them, and to bid the man who was driving me, call,
too--when their cab abruptly turned down a bye-street, in a direction
exactly opposite to the direction which led to North Villa.
What did this mean? Why were they not going straight home?
The cabman asked me whether he should not hail them before they got
farther away from us; frankly confessing, as he put the question,
that his horse was nothing like equal to the pace of the horse ahead.
Mechanically, without assignable purpose or motive, I declined his
offer, and told him simply to follow at any distance he could. While the
words passed my lips, a strange sensation stole over me: I seemed to be
speaking as the mere mouthpiece of some other voice. From feeling hot,
and moving about restlessly the moment before, I felt unaccountably
cold, and sat still now. What caused this?
My cab stopped. I looked out, and saw that the horse had fallen. “We’ve
lots of time, Sir,” said the driver, as he coolly stepped off the box,
“they are just pulling up further down the road.” I gave him some money,
and got out immediately--determined to overtake them on foot.
It was a very lonely place--a colony of half-finished streets, and
half-inhabited houses, which had grown up in the neighbourhood of a
great railway station. I heard the fierce scream of the whistle, and
the heaving, heavy throb of the engine starting on its journey, as I
advanced along the gloomy Square in which I now found myself. The cab
I had been following stood at a turning which led into a long street,
occupied towards the farther end, by shops closed for the night, and at
the end nearest me, apparently by private houses only. Margaret and Mr.
Mannion hastily left the cab, and without looking either to the right
or the left, hurried down the street. They stopped at the ninth house. I
followed just in time to hear the door closed on them, and to count the
number of doors intervening between that door and the Square.
The awful thrill of a suspicion which I hardly knew yet for what it
really was, began to creep over me--to creep like a dead-cold touch
crawling through and through me to the heart. I looked up at the house.
It was an hotel--a neglected, deserted, dreary-looking building.
Still acting mechanically; still with no definite impulse that I could
recognise, even if I felt it, except the instinctive resolution to
follow them into the house, as I had already followed them through the
street--I walked up to the door, and rang the bell.
It was answered by a waiter--a mere lad. As the light in the passage
fell on my face, he paused in the act of addressing me, and drew back
a few steps. Without stopping for any explanations, I closed the door
behind me, and said to him at once:
“A lady and gentleman came into this hotel a little while ago.”
“What may your business be?”--He hesitated, and added in an altered
tone, “I mean, what may you want with them, Sir?”
“I want you to take me where I can hear their voices, and I want nothing
more. Here’s a sovereign for you, if you do what I ask.”
His eyes fastened covetously on the gold, as I held it before them. He
retired a few steps on tiptoe, and listened at the end of the passage.
I heard nothing but the thick, rapid beating of my own heart. He came
back, muttering to himself: “Master’s safe at supper down stairs--I’ll
risk it! You’ll promise to go away directly,” he added, whispering to
me, “and not disturb the house? We are quiet people here, and can’t have
anything like a disturbance. Just say at once, will you promise to step
soft, and not speak a word?”
“I promise.”
“This way then, Sir--and mind you don’t forget to step soft.”
A strange coldness and stillness, an icy insensibility, a
dream-sensation of being impelled by some hidden, irresistible agency,
possessed me, as I followed him upstairs. He showed me softly into an
empty room; pointed to one of the walls, whispering, “It’s only boards
papered over--” and then waited, keeping his eyes anxiously and steadily
fixed upon all my movements.
I listened; and through the thin partition, I heard voices--_her_ voice,
and _his_ voice. _I heard and I knew_--knew my degradation in all its
infamy, knew my wrongs in all their nameless horror. He was exulting
in the patience and secrecy which had brought success to the foul plot,
foully hidden for months on months; foully hidden until the very day
before I was to have claimed as my wife, a wretch as guilty as himself!
I could neither move nor breathe. The blood surged and heaved upward to
my brain; my heart strained and writhed in anguish; the life within me
raged and tore to get free. Whole years of the direst mental and bodily
agony were concentrated in that one moment of helpless, motionless
torment. I never lost the consciousness of suffering. I heard the
waiter say, under his breath, “My God! he’s dying.” I felt him loosen my
cravat--I knew that he dashed cold water over me; dragged me out of the
room; and, opening a window on the landing, held me firmly where the
night-air blew upon my face. I knew all this; and knew when the paroxysm
passed, and nothing remained of it, but a shivering helplessness in
every limb.
Erelong, the power of thinking began to return to me by degrees.
Misery, and shame, and horror, and a vain yearning to hide myself from
all human eyes, and weep out my life in secret, overcame me. Then, these
subsided; and ONE THOUGHT slowly arose in their stead--arose, and
cast down before it every obstacle of conscience, every principle of
education, every care for the future, every remembrance of the past,
every weakening influence of present misery, every repressing tie of
family and home, every anxiety for good fame in this life, and every
idea of the next that was to come. Before the fell poison of that
Thought, all other thoughts--good or evil--died. As it spoke secretly
within me, I felt my bodily strength coming back; a quick vigour leapt
hotly through my frame. I turned, and looked round towards the room we
had just left--my mind was looking at the room beyond it, the room they
were in.
The waiter was still standing by my side, watching me intently. He
suddenly started back; and, with pale face and staring eyes, pointed
down the stairs.
“You go,” he whispered, “go directly! You’re well now--I’m afraid to
have you here any longer. I saw your look, your horrid look at that
room! You’ve heard what you wanted for your money--go at once; or, if
I lose my place for it, I’ll call out Murder, and raise the house. And
mind this: as true as God’s in heaven, I’ll warn them both before they
go outside our door!”
Hearing, but not heeding him, I left the house. No voice that ever
spoke, could have called me back from the course on which I was now
bound. The waiter watched me vigilantly from the door, as I went out.
Seeing this, I made a circuit, before I returned to the spot where, as I
had suspected, the cab they had ridden in was still waiting for them.
The driver was asleep inside. I awoke him; told him I had been sent
to say that he was not wanted again that night: and secured his ready
departure, by at once paying him on his own terms. He drove off; and
the first obstacle on the fatal path which I had resolved to tread
unopposed, was now removed.
As the cab disappeared from my sight, I looked up at the sky. It was
growing very dark. The ragged black clouds, fantastically parted from
each other in island shapes over the whole surface of the heavens, were
fast drawing together into one huge, formless, lowering mass, and
had already hidden the moon for, good. I went back to the street, and
stationed myself in the pitch darkness of a passage which led down a
mews, situated exactly opposite to the hotel.
In the silence and obscurity, in the sudden pause of action while I
now waited and watched, my Thought rose to my lips, and my speech
mechanically formed it into words. I whispered softly to myself: _I will
kill him when he comes out._ My mind never swerved for an instant from
this thought--never swerved towards myself; never swerved towards _her._
Grief was numbed at my heart; and the consciousness of my own misery was
numbed with grief. Death chills all before it--and Death and my Thought
were one.
Once, while I stood on the watch, a sharp agony of suspense tried me
fiercely.
Just as I had calculated that the time was come which would force them
to depart, in order to return to North Villa by the appointed hour, I
heard the slow, heavy, regular tramp of a footstep advancing along the
street. It was the policeman of the district going his round. As he
approached the entrance to the mews he paused, yawned, stretched his
arms, and began to whistle a tune. If Mannion should come out while he
was there! My blood seemed to stagnate on its course, while I thought
that this might well happen. Suddenly, the man ceased whistling, looked
steadily up and down the street, and tried the door of a house near
him--advanced a few steps--then paused again, and tried another
door--then muttered to himself, in drowsy tones--“I’ve seen all safe
here already: it’s the other street I forgot just now.” He turned, and
retraced his way. I fixed my aching eyes vigilantly on the hotel, while
I heard the sound of his footsteps grow fainter and fainter in the
distance. It ceased altogether; and still there was no change--still the
man whose life I was waiting for, never appeared.
Ten minutes after this, so far as I can guess, the door opened; and I
heard Mannion’s voice, and the voice of the lad who had let me in. “Look
about you before you go out,” said the waiter, speaking in the
passage; “the street’s not safe for you.” Disbelieving, or affecting to
disbelieve, what he heard, Mannion interrupted the waiter angrily; and
endeavoured to reassure his companion in guilt, by asserting that the
warning was nothing but an attempt to extort money by way of reward. The
man retorted sulkily, that he cared nothing for the gentleman’s money,
or the gentleman either. Immediately afterwards an inner door in the
house banged violently; and I knew that Mannion had been left to his
fate.
There was a momentary silence; and then I heard him tell his accomplice
that he would go alone to look for the cab, and that she had better
close the door and wait quietly in the passage till he came back. This
was done. He walked out into the street. It was after twelve o’clock. No
sound of a strange footfall was audible--no soul was at hand to witness,
and prevent, the coming struggle. His life was mine. His death followed
him as fast as my feet followed, while I was now walking on his track.
He looked up and down, from the entrance to the street, for the cab.
Then, seeing that it was gone, he hastily turned back. At that instant I
met him face to face. Before a word could be spoken, even before a look
could be exchanged, my hands were on his throat.
He was a taller and heavier man than I was; and struggled with me,
knowing that he was struggling for his life. He never shook my grasp on
him for a moment; but he dragged me out into the road--dragged me away
eight or ten yards from the street. The heavy gasps of approaching
suffocation beat thick on my forehead from his open mouth: he swerved
to and fro furiously, from side to side; and struck at me, swinging his
clenched fists high above his head. I stood firm, and held him away at
arm’s length. As I dug my feet into the ground to steady myself, I heard
the crunching of stones--the road had been newly mended with granite.
Instantly, a savage purpose goaded into fury the deadly resolution by
which I was possessed. I shifted my hold to the back of his neck, and
the collar of his coat, and hurled him, with the whole impetus of the
raging strength that was let loose in me, face downwards, on to the
stones.
In the mad triumph of that moment, I had already stooped towards him, as
he lay insensible beneath me, to lift him again, and beat out of him, on
the granite, not life only, but the semblance of humanity as well; when,
in the blank stillness that followed the struggle, I heard the door of
the hotel in the street open once more. I left him directly, and ran
back from the square--I knew not with what motive, or what idea--to the
spot.
On the steps of the house, on the threshold of that accursed place,
stood the woman whom God’s minister had given to me in the sight of God,
as my wife.
One long pang of shame and despair shot through my heart as I looked at
her, and tortured out of its trance the spirit within me. Thousands on
thousands of thoughts seemed to be whirling in the wildest confusion
through and through my brain--thoughts, whose track was a track of
fire--thoughts that struck me with a hellish torment of dumbness, at
the very time when I would have purchased with my life the power of a
moment’s speech. Voiceless and tearless, I went up to her, and took
her by the arm, and drew her away from the house. There was some vague
purpose in me, as I did this, of never quitting my hold of her, never
letting her stir from me by so much as an inch, until I had spoken
certain words to her. What words they were, and when I should utter
them, I could not tell.
The cry for mercy was on her lips, but the instant our eyes met, it died
away in long, low, hysterical moanings. Her cheeks were ghastly, her
features were rigid, her eyes glared like an idiot’s; guilt and terror
had made her hideous to look upon already.
I drew her onward a few paces towards the Square. Then I stopped,
remembering the body that lay face downwards on the road. The savage
strength of a few moments before, had left me from the time when I first
saw her. I now reeled where I stood, from sheer physical weakness.
The sound of her pantings and shudderings, of her abject inarticulate
murmurings for mercy, struck me with a supernatural terror. My fingers
trembled round her arm, the perspiration dripped down my face, like
rain; I caught at the railings by my side, to keep myself from falling.
As I did so, she snatched her arm from my grasp, as easily as if I had
been a child; and, with a cry for help, fled towards the further end of
the street.
Still, the strange instinct of never losing hold of her, influenced me.
I followed, staggering like a drunken man. In a moment, she was out of
my reach; in another, out of my sight. I went on, nevertheless; on, and
on, and on, I knew not whither. I lost all ideas of time and distance.
Sometimes I went round and round the same streets, over and over again.
Sometimes I hurried in one direction, straight forward. Wherever I went,
it seemed to me that she was still just before; that her track and my
track were one; that I had just lost my hold of her, and that she was
just starting on her flight.
I remember passing two men in this way, in some great thoroughfare. They
both stopped, turned, and walked a few steps after me. One laughed at
me, as a drunkard. The other, in serious tones, told him to be silent;
for I was not drunk, but mad--he had seen my face as I passed under a
gas-lamp, and he knew that I was mad.
“MAD!”--that word, as I heard it, rang after me like a voice of
judgment. “MAD!”--a fear had come over me, which, in all its frightful
complication, was expressed by that one word--a fear which, to the man
who suffers it, is worse even than the fear of death; which no human
language ever has conveyed, or ever will convey, in all its horrible
reality, to others. I had pressed onward, hitherto, because I saw a
vision that led me after it--a beckoning shadow, ahead, darker even
than the night darkness. I still pressed on, now; but only because I was
afraid to stop.
I know not how far I had gone, when my strength utterly failed me, and
I sank down helpless, in a lonely place where the houses were few and
scattered, and trees and fields were dimly discernible in the obscurity
beyond. I hid my face in my hands, and tried to assure myself that I was
still in possession of my senses. I strove hard to separate my thoughts;
to distinguish between my recollections; to extricate from the confusion
within me any one idea, no matter what--and I could not do it. In that
awful struggle for the mastery over my own mind, all that had passed,
all the horror of that horrible night, became as nothing to me. I
raised myself, and looked up again, and tried to steady my reason by
the simplest means--even by endeavouring to count all the houses within
sight. The darkness bewildered me. Darkness?--_Was_ it dark? or was day
breaking yonder, far away in the murky eastern sky? Did I know what I
saw? Did I see the same thing for a few moments together? What was this
under me? Grass? yes! cold, soft, dewy grass. I bent down my forehead
upon it, and tried, for the last time, to steady my faculties by
praying; tried if I could utter the prayer which I had known and
repeated every day from childhood--the Lord’s Prayer. The Divine Words
came not at my call--no! not one of them, from the beginning to the end!
I started up on my knees. A blaze of lurid sunshine flashed before my
eyes; a hell-blaze of brightness, with fiends by millions, raining
down out of it on my head; then a rayless darkness--the darkness of the
blind--then God’s mercy at last--the mercy of utter oblivion.
* * * * *
When I recovered my consciousness, I was lying on the couch in my own
study. My father was supporting me on the pillow; the doctor had his
fingers on my pulse; and a policeman was telling them where he had found
me, and how he had brought me home.