BOOK II.

THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.

THE FIRST DAY.

It is rather difficult for a girl, after all her solemn and awful

anticipations of the wonderful event of her marriage, to find after it

is over that she is precisely the same person as she was before--that

instead of the sudden elevation, the gravity, and decorum, and

stateliness of character which would become the mature stage of her

existence, she has brought all her girlish faults with her, all her

youth and extravagance, and is in reality, just as she was a few months

ago, neither wiser, nor older, nor having greater command of herself,

than when she was a young unwedded girl. After I became accustomed to

Harry's constant companionship, and got over the first awe of myself and

my changed position, I was extremely puzzled to find myself quite

unchanged. No, I had not bidden a solemn adieu to my youth when I left

my father's house; I was as young as ever, as impulsive, as eager, as

ready to enjoy as to be miserable. I could fancy, indeed, with all this,

and the gay foreign life around me, and Harry's anxiety to please, and

amuse, and keep me happy--I who knew life only as it passed in our

lonely drawing-room and garden, or in the dull streets of

Cambridge--that youth, instead of being ended, was only beginning for

me.

I was in vigorous health, and had an adventurous spirit. Long rapid

journeys had in them a strange exhilaration for me. I liked the idea of

our rapid race over states and empires; the motion, and speed, and

constant change made the great charm of travel. I did not care for

museums and picture-galleries: but I cared for a bright passing glimpse

of an old picturesque town, a grand castle or cathedral; and though the

road we travelled was a road which people called hackneyed and worn out,

the resort of cockney tourists, and all manner of book-makers--yet it

was perfectly fresh to me.

This day was in the early part of October, chill, bracing, and sunshiny.

A very wearisome journey on the day before, had brought us to an old

German town, where there was neither tourist nor English; but old

embattled walls--Gothic houses, and churches dating far back--those

picturesque rude centuries, when they knew the art of building, whatever

other arts they did not know. Young and light of heart as we were, our

fatigue vanished with the night, and when we had taken our coffee and

our hard leathery rolls in the light, cold, carpetless _salle_ of our

inn, we went out arm in arm for one of our long rambles, with no

cicerone to disturb our enjoyment. We were not model sightseers--we did

not find out what was to be admired beforehand, nor seek the lions--we

were only two very young people much delighted with these novel scenes,

and with each other, who were in no mood to be critical. We delighted to

lose ourselves in these quaint old streets--to trace their curious

intricacies, to find out the noble vistas here and there, when the high

houses stretched along in perched and varied lines to the golden way,

where there was some smoke and a great deal of sunshine, behind which

lay the sky. We saw the churches, and admired and wondered at them, but

our great fascination was in the streets, where everything savored of

another land and time; the peasant dress, the characteristic features,

the strange tongue, which, except when Harry spoke, was unintelligible

to me, made all these streets animated pictures to my eager observation.

I was a very good walker, and not easily wearied, and Harry was only

too eager to do every thing I pleased. We came and went, enjoying every

thing, and I think our fresh young English faces, our freedom, and

vigor, and youthful happiness attracted some wistful glances from under

the toil-worn, sun-burnt brows of these peasant people, about whom I was

so curious; our enjoyment was so frank and honest, that it pleased even

the unenjoying bystanders; and all the young waiters at the inn, who

shook their heads at my elaborately conned questions in German, and

drove me desperate with the voluble and anxious explanations of which I

could not understand a word, had now a French dictionary on the

side-table in the _salle_, which some one was always studying for my

especial benefit--what with smiles and signs, and my English-French, and

their newly acquired phrases, we managed to do a little conversation

sometimes, though whether I or my young attendants would have been most

barbarous to a Parisian, even I cannot tell--though I dare say the palm

would have been given to me.

Although my dress was quite plain, and we flattered ourselves that it

was not easy to find out that this was our wedding tour, it was strange

what a sympathetic consciousness every one seemed to have that I was a

bride. The people were all so wonderfully kind to us--we travelled in

the simplest way without either maid or man. We had nothing to limit or

restrain us, no need to be at any certain place by any certain day, no

necessity to please any one's convenience but our own; so we rambled on

through these old picturesque streets, the bright autumn day floating

unnoted over our heads, and life running on with us in an enchanted

stream. There was the chill of early winter in the air already; and in

those deep narrow lanes, where the paths looked like a deep cut through

the houses rather than a road, on each side of which they had been

built, were parties of wood-sellers chopping up into lengths for fuel

great branches and limbs of trees. Everybody seemed to be laying in

their winter stock, the streets resounded with the ringing of the

hatchet, the German jokes and gossip of the operators, and the hoarse

rattle of the rope or chain by which the loaded bucket was drawn up to

the highest story, the storeroom of these antique houses. As we threaded

these deep alleys arm in arm, catching peeps of interiors and visions of

homely housewifery, we caught many smiling and kindly glances, and I do

not doubt that many a brave little woman called from the door to her

mother when she saw us coming, that here were the young Englishers

again--for we had store of kreutzers and zwangzigers, and these small

people very soon found it out.

We had just emerged upon one of the principal streets, when Harry

uttered a surprised and impatient exclamation, and turned me hastily

around again, to go in another direction. "What is the matter?" cried I,

in alarm. "Nothing," he said, quietly, "only a great bore whom I knew

when I was last in Germany. Here, Hester, let's avoid him if we can."

We turned up a steep street leading to one of the gates of the town, and

Harry hurried me along at a great pace. "We are running away," said I,

laughing, and out of breath. "You are a true Englishman, Harry, you flee

before a bore when you would face an enemy; who is this formidable

stranger?"

"He is a professor at Bonn," said Harry, in a disturbed and uneasy tone.

"I was there some time, you know--and knew him pretty well, but if he

finds us out here, we will never get rid of him, unless we leave the

town in desperation. Come, Hester, a race for it, you are not too old or

too sedate for that. An army of bores would conquer with a look, like

Cæsar--nothing could stand before them. Come, Hester!"

We ran across the bridge of planks which stretched over the peaceful

moats, now a garden of rich verdure, full of tobacco plants and

plum-trees, from the Thiergarten Thor. There we continued our ramble

without the walls. At a little distance was a peaceful old churchyard,

where some great people were lying, and where many unknown people slept

very quietly with love-wreaths and scattered flowers over their humble

tombstones. Some one had been laid down in that quiet bed even now, and

we two, in our youth and flush of happiness, stood by, and saw the

flowers showered down in handfuls and basketfuls upon the last enclosure

of humanity. The rude earth was not thrown in till this sweet bright

coverlid lay thick and soft upon the buried one--buried in flowers. We

came away very softly from this scene--it touched our hearts, and awed

us with a sense of our uncertain tenure of our great happiness. We clung

close to each other, and went on with subdued steps, saying nothing; and

there on our way, at regular intervals, were those rude frames of

masonry, enclosing each its piece of solemn sculpture, its groups of

Jews and Romans looking on, and its one grand central figure,

thorn-crowned and bearing the cross. I remember the strange emotion

which crept upon me as we went along this sunny road. I had heard of the

great sorrows of life, with the hearing of the ear, but I knew them

not--and it struck me with a dull and strange wonder to see these

pictures of the mortal agony which purchased life and hope and comfort

for this latter world. I shrank closer to my husband and clasped his

arm, and turned my eyes from those dark and antique pictures. I knew not

Him who stooped under his tremendous burden, in this sublime and

voluntary anguish. I was awestruck at the thought, but I turned away

from it. I was glad to talk again of what we had been seeing, of where

we were to go next. We were going back to our hotel in the first place,

and when we returned by another gate, I woke once more to amusement,

when I saw how jealously Harry looked about to see if his bore was still

in our way.

And as it happened, when we had almost reached our inn, and turned a

sharp corner on our way to it, we suddenly met this dreaded stranger

face to face; there was no escaping then; after a moment's pause, he

rushed upon Harry with the warmest solicitations, addressing him in very

deliberate and laborious English, by his present name, which he called

"Soutcote," and seemed quite to claim the standing of an old friend.

I was amused, yet I was annoyed, at Harry's appearance and manner. He

was more than constrained, he was embarrassed, one moment cordial, the

other, cold and repellant, and though he submitted to an affectionate

greeting himself, it was in the proudest and briefest manner in the

world that he introduced me. My new acquaintance was a middle-aged

gentleman, abundantly bearded, with an immense cloak over his arm, and

an odor of cigars about his whole person--but that odor of cigars was in

the very atmosphere. I am sorry to confess that even Harry had it; and

the Professor had bright, twinkling, sensible eyes, and his face, though

it was large and sallow, was good-humored and pleasant, so much as you

could see of it, from its forest of hair. He did not look at all like a

bore, and he spoke very good slow English, and I was surprised at

Harry's dislike of him. He asked where we were living, and with a very

bad grace Harry told him; then he volunteered to call on us. I had to

answer myself that we would be glad to see him, for Harry did not say a

word, and then he apologized for some immediate engagement he had, and

went away.

"He does not seem a bore," said I; "why did you run away from him,

Harry? and if you only give him time enough, he speaks very good

English. It is pleasant to hear some one speaking English. I hope he

will come to-night."

"O inconsistent womanhood!" said Harry, hiding a look of great annoyance

under a smile, "how long is it since you told me that you liked to be

isolated from all the world, and that it was very pleasant for two

people to have a language all to themselves?"

"That was a week ago," I said, "and I like it still, and yet I like to

hear somebody speak English; why do not you like him? I think he looks

very pleasant for a German. You ought to be glad to have some one else

to speak to than always me."

"Do you judge by yourself?" said Harry, smiling; "as for me, Hester, I

am no more tired of our _tête-à-tête_ than I was the day we left

Cambridge--so pray be thankful on your account and not mine."

"Are you vexed, Harry?" asked I.

"I am annoyed to have this presuming intruder thrust upon us," said

Harry. "I know he is not easily discouraged, and I _did_ know him very

well, and went to his house, so that I should not like quite to be rude

to him; and foreigners are so ignorant of our English habits in England,

our friend would not understand that people who have only been three

weeks married, prefer their own society to anybody else; but everything

is so different here."

"Perhaps he does not know how short a time it is," said I, "but he

called you Southcote, Harry; did you write to him, or how does he know?"

"Oh! from the papers, of course," said Harry, hurriedly, "you know what

linguists these Germans are, and how they like to show their proficiency

in our language: and, of course, there are lots of English fellows in

Bonn; and where there are English, there is generally a _Times_. Why,

the professor has become quite a hero, Hester; come in and dine, and

forget that our solitude has been disturbed; what a bloom you have

got--I think they will vote me thanks when I take you home."

So speaking, Harry hastened me in to arrange my dress. I could not

understand his embarrassment, his perplexity, his dislike of the

stranger. Why receive him less cordially than he had been used to do;

why introduce him to me so stiffly; a person who knew so much about him,

that he was even aware of his change of name, though he did not seem

equally aware of his marriage. It was very odd altogether--my curiosity

was piqued, and I think I should have been very much disappointed if the

stranger had not come that night.

We had another long ramble after dinner, for our hotel apartments, great

gaunt rooms, with rows of many windows, and scanty scattered morsels of

furniture, were not very attractive, and when we finally came in again

very tired, Harry wrapped my shawl round me, had a crackling explosive

wood fire lighted in the stove, made me rest upon the sofa, and finally

told me that he would "take a turn" for ten minutes and have a cigar. I

was a little disappointed--he seldom did it, and I did not like to be

without him, even for ten minutes; however, I was reasonable, and let

him go away.

When he was gone, I lay quite still in the great darkening room; there

were five windows in it, parallel lines of dull light coming in over the

high steep roof of a house opposite, where there were half-a-dozen

stories of attic windows, like a flight of steps upon the giddy incline

of those mossed tiles. The whole five only made the twilight visible,

and disclosed in dark shadow the parallel lines of darkness in the

spaces between them; and the great green porcelain stove near which I

lay, gave no light, but only startling reports of sound to the vacant

solitary apartment. I was glad to hear the crackling of the wood--it was

"company" to me--and I began to think over Alice's last letter, with its

consolatory assurance that my father was well. He wrote himself, but his

letters said nothing of his health, and I was very glad of the odd

upside down epistle of Alice, which told me plainly in so many words

what I wanted to know. In another week we were to go home, but Harry had

said nothing yet of where we were to go to; he had received a letter

from Mr. Osborne, about the house, and I concluded we would go first to

Cambridge, and there find a place for ourselves.

It brought the color to my cheek to think of going home with Harry, and

taking my husband with me to the dwelling of my youth. I was shy of my

father and Alice, under my new circumstances. If I had the first meeting

over, I did not think I would care for the rest--but the first meeting

was a very embarrassing thought. I was occupying myself with boding of

these pleasant troubles, when I heard voices approaching the door; the

Herr Professor's solemn English, and Harry's tones, franker and less

embarrassed than before. I got up hastily, and they entered; the

stranger came and took a seat by me; he began to tell me he had once

been in London, and what a wonderful place he thought it; his manner of

speaking was amusing to me--it was very slow, as if every word had to

be translated as he went on--but it was very good English

notwithstanding, and not merely German translated into English words;

and the matter was very good, sprightly and sensible; and I was very

much amused by his odd observations upon our habits, and the strange

twist the most familiar things acquired when looked at through his

foreign spectacles. He had a great deal of quiet humor, and made quaint

grave remarks, at which it was very hard to keep one's gravity. I

thought he was the last person in the world whom any one could call a

bore.

All this time Harry sat nervous and restless, with a flush upon his

face, taking little part in the conversation; but watching the very lips

of the stranger, as it seemed to me, to perceive the words that they

formed before he uttered them. I was very anxious that he should speak

rather of Harry, than of London. I should have liked so much to hear if

he was very popular among his companions, and very clever as a student;

but when I saw how very nervous and fidgety Harry was, I did not like to

ask, but sat in discomfort and strange watchfulness, my attention roused

to every word the professor said. I could not perceive that he said

anything of importance, and I really was very much disturbed and

troubled by the look of Harry.

Then suddenly the stranger turned round and began to speak to him in

German. Why in German? when he could speak English perfectly well, and

evidently liked to exhibit his acquirements. This put the climax to my

astonishment, and it did more than that, it woke a vague pang in my

heart, unknown before, which I suppose was that little thing called

jealousy; had Harry gone out on purpose to meet and warn him? was it at

Harry's request, and that I might not understand, that they spoke in

German? A sudden suspiciousness sprang up within me--was there, indeed,

some secret which Harry did not want me to know?--I who would have

counted it the greatest hardship in the world to have anything to

conceal from him.

I sank into sudden and immediate silence--I watched Harry. I was

mortified, grieved, humiliated--I could have left the room and gone away

somewhere to cry by myself; but this would only make matters worse, and

I did not wish Harry to think me unreasonable or exacting. But he saw

that I grew very pale, he saw the tears in my eyes, and how firmly my

hands clasped each other. He suddenly said something in English--the

stranger answered, and this cause of distress to me was gone; but now

the Professor was speaking of having visited Harry in England. "And that

house you were speaking of," said the German, "that, ho--I know not your

names--did you never go to live in it then?"

"No, no, I have never been there," said Harry, hastily, "a place I was

thinking of--of settling in, Hester," he explained to me in a very timid

way, "when you are next in England you must see a true English home,

Professor--no bachelor's quarters now."

"Ah, my young friend, I have not forgot what you did say about _la belle

cousine_," said the Professor, with a smile at me.

I sat as still as if I had been made of stone. I saw Harry's face flush

with a violent color; but no color came to my cheek--I felt cold, rigid,

desolate. I shivered over all my frame with the chill at my heart. For

he had said so often that I was the only one who had ever entered his

heart--that he had known no love of any kind till he knew me. Alas! were

these all vain words; the common deceits of the world--and what was I to

believe or trust in, if my faith failed in Harry? I tried to believe it

was some foolish jest, but though I might have persuaded myself so from

the unconscious smile of the Professor, there was guilt on Harry's brow.

I did not change my position in the slightest gesture. I sat very still,

scarcely drawing my breath. The momentary pause that followed was an age

to me. While the silence lasted, I had already tried to persuade myself

that whatever might have been, Harry loved me only now--but I could not

do it--I was sick to my very heart.

I heard him dash into conversation again, into talk upon general

subjects, vague and uninteresting. I listened to it all with the most

absorbing interest to find something more on this one point, if I could.

Then, by and bye, the stranger went away. I bade him good-night

mechanically, and sat still, hearing the wood crackling in the stove,

and Harry's footsteps as he returned from the door. He came in, and sat

down beside me on the sofa. He took my cold hand and clasped it between

his. He said "Hester--Hester--Hester!" every time more tenderly, till I

could bear it no longer, and burst into tears.

"Oh, Harry! you might have told me," I exclaimed passionately, "you

might have said that you cared for some one else before you cared for

me!"

"It would have been false, if I had said so, Hester," he answered me, in

a very low earnest tone.

"Oh, Harry, Harry! do not deceive me now," I said, making a great effort

to keep down a sob.

He drew me close to him, and made me lean upon his shoulder. "In this I

never have, nor ever will, deceive you," he said, bending over me--"I

never knew what love was till I knew you, Hester. What I say is true.

See--I have no fear that you can find me out in a moment's inconstancy.

My thoughts have never wandered from you since I saw you first--and

before I saw you, I was desolate and loved no one. You believe me?"

Could I refuse to believe him? I clung to him and cried, but my tears

were not bitter any more. I could believe him surely better than a

hundred strangers; but still I lifted my head and said, "What did the

Professor mean?"

"I knew he would make mischief, this meddling fellow," said Harry.

"Hester! do not distrust me, at least on this point, when I say I cannot

tell you yet what he means. I have a confession to make, and a story to

tell--it is so, indeed, I cannot deny it. But wait till we get to

England--wait till we are at home--you will trust me for a few days

longer--say you will?"

"I have trusted you implicitly, everything you have done and said until

now," said I almost with a groan.

He kissed my hand with touching humility. "You have, Hester, I know you

have," he said under his breath, but he said no more--not a word of

explanation--not a single regret--not a hint of what I was to look for

when he told me his story--his story! what could it be?

For some time we sat in silence side by side, listening to the wind

without, and to the roaring and crackling of the wood in the stove. We

did not look at each other. For the first time, we were embarrassed and

uneasy. We had no quarrel--no disagreement, but there was something

between us--something--one of those shadowy barriers that struck a sense

of individual existence and separateness for the first time to our

hearts. We were checked upon our course of cordial and perfect unity. We

began an anxious endeavor to make conversation for each other--it did

not flow freely as it had done, nor was this the charmed silence in

which only last night we had been delighted to sit. The wind whistled

drearily about the house, and rattled at the windows. "I hope we will

have calm weather to cross the channel," said Harry, and then we began

to discuss how and when we were to go home.

Yes--the charm of our rambling was gone, all my desire now was to get

home to know what this confession was which Harry had to make to me. It

was not the confession I had dreaded--it was not that somebody else had

ever been as dear to him as I was now--what could it be? He spoke of it

no more, but left it to my imagination without a word. My imagination,

puzzled and bewildered, could make nothing of the mystery--could he, in

his early youth, have done something very _wrong?_ No, it was

impossible, I could not credit that of Harry. I was entirely at fault,

and I think before an hour was over I would gladly have undertaken to

forgive him beforehand, and chase the nightmare away. But he did not

seem able to forget it; it was a bigger nightmare to him than to me. He

was very kind, very loving, and tender; but there was a deprecation in

his manner which troubled me exceedingly. How I longed now that this

Dutch professor had never broken in upon our happy, happy days. How

annoyed I was at my own childish perversity, my opposition to Harry

because I thought he was not cordial to the stranger. What concern had I

with the stranger? and he had repaid me by bringing the first blank into

our joyous intercourse--the first secret between our hearts.

Before evening was spent, we were a little better. It made me miserable

to see Harry looking unhappy and constrained. We tacitly avoided all

reference which could touch upon this mystery, and arranged and

re-arranged our journey home, or to "England" as we said. I did not ask

where we should go to, nor did he say, and so ended the first tedious

evening of our married life.

THE SECOND DAY.

It was the middle of October, stormy, cloudy, a searching chill

disconsolate day. It had been wet in the morning, and the low lands near

Calais were flooded with the previous rains. Everything on shore was as

gloomy and uncomfortable as could be; and the decks of the little

steamer were wet with sea water, as we stepped on board of her in the

deceitful harbor of Calais, where the wild sea without was beyond our

reach or ken. When we cleared the harbor and made our wild plunge amid

the raging lions without, I never will forget what a shock it gave me.

Crossing these wild little straits on our way to the Continent had been

my first voyage--this was only my second, and I thought these monstrous

waves which rolled up to us defiant and boastful like Goliath, were to

swallow up in an instant our brave little David, the small stout

straining seaboat, which bore our lives and our hopes within a

hair's-breadth of destruction, as I thought. "Take the lady below, sir,

she can't be no worse nor ill there," said a seaman pithily, as he

rolled past us with a mop and bucket, with which they vainly attempted

to dry the flooded deck. I was so much worse than ill here, that I was

drenched with the dashing of the waves; but the man did not know with

what a solemn expectation I waited--looked to be devoured and engulfed

every moment by some invading wave.

Yet in spite of all, we reached the opposite shore in safety, and stood

once more upon English ground--there we rested for a little and changed

our wet dresses, and Harry pressed and entreated me to take

refreshments. I made an effort, to please him; but he took nothing

himself--he looked very much agitated, though he suppressed his feeling

so anxiously. For a few days we had greatly regained our former happy

freedom, and forgot that anything had ever come between us. I am sure it

was not my fault that the feeling was revived to-day; I had made no

allusion to what he was to tell me, I had even avoided speaking of the

home to which we were going, lest he might think I was impatient for his

secret. My mind was free, and I could forget it; but it lay on Harry's

conscience, and he could not.

I think the storm had pleased him while we were on the water, it wailed

and it chimed in with his own excitement; but when we landed, when we

had to rest and refresh ourselves, and there was an hour or two to wait

for a train, my heart ached for Harry. He looked so restless, so

agitated, so unhappy. I kept by him constantly, yet I sometimes feared

that I rather aggravated than soothed his emotion by any tenderness I

showed him. He looked so grateful for it, that I felt almost injured by

his thankfulness. He turned such wistful looks upon me, as if he doubted

whether I ever would look upon him or speak to him as I did now after

this day. The importance he seemed to attach to it, gave his mystery a

new weight in my eyes. I had begun to grow familiar with it--to think it

must be nothing and despise it; but it was impossible to do so when I

saw this excitement under which Harry was laboring. What could it be?

Nay, if it was indeed something very bad he had done in some former

time--which was the most probable thing I could think of--that was

nothing to me--that could never estrange us from each other. And when we

set out again upon our journey, and rushed away with giant strides to

London, I pleased myself thinking how I would laugh at his fears when I

really heard his story--how I would upbraid him for believing that

anything could ever come between us--how I would chase him back into his

old self with tenderer words than I had ever spoken yet. We sat opposite

each other, yet our eyes very seldom met--he was cogitating in doubt and

trouble, I was thinking of him very lovingly--how good he was--how

strange that he ever could do wrong--how impossible that either wrong or

right should part him and me. My heart swelled when I recollected all

his tender care of me--how, though I was his wife, I had never for a

moment been divested of that delicate and reverent honor with which he

surrounded me in the days of our betrothal. I felt that I could trust to

him as a child trusts, and not even care to seek his secret; and I

rejoiced in thinking how soon I could dissipate the cloud that was over

him when the crisis really came.

We had another little interval of waiting in London, and then set out

again for Cambridge, as I thought. It was now getting late, and the day

declined rapidly. Harry did not seem able to speak to me; he sat by my

side, so that I could no longer see his face, and we travelled on in

silence, rushing through the gathering darkness; every moment Harry's

excitement seemed to grow and increase. He took my hand and held it

tight for a moment--then he released it to clasp and strain his own

together. Sometimes he turned to me, as if just on the point of making

his confession, whatever that confession might be, but immediately

repented and turned from me again. I did all I could to soothe him, but

vainly as it seemed; and had it not been for my perfect conviction that

I had but to hear his story, to convince him that nothing horrible could

stand between us, I could scarcely have endured those hours of rapid and

silent travelling, full of expectation as they were. At length we

stopped at a little unimportant station on the way. "We get out here,

Hester," said Harry, in a stifled breathless voice, as he helped me to

alight; his hand was burning as if with fever, and the light of the

lamps showed me the white cloud of excitement on his face. Outside the

station, a carriage was waiting for us. "You have found a house then,

Harry; why did you not tell me?" I said, as he handed me into it. "Did

you mean it for a surprise?" "Yes," he said hoarsely--he was not able to

say any more. I saw, I was very sorry for him. I took his hand, which

was now cold, and warmed it between my own. I could not help

remonstrating with him. I could not bear it any longer.

"Harry," said I, "why are you so much troubled? have you no confidence

at all in me? do you forget what I am--your wife? I cannot think

anything would disturb you so much, but something wrong--but is it my

place to sit in judgment upon any wrong you may have done? It will be

hard for me to believe it. I would believe no one but yourself on such a

subject, and whatever it is, it can make no difference with me. Harry!

don't turn away from me--don't let us be separated; you make me very

anxious; yet I would rather not know what it is that troubles you so. I

am not going home to be a punishment or a judge upon you--you forget I

am your wife, Harry."

But Harry only groaned; it was remorse, compunction, that was in his

heart. He repeated my last words wildly with passionate exaggerated

tones of fondness. His angel, he called me; much troubled as I was, I

smiled at the name--but I was honest enough to know that there was very

little even of the earthly angel about me.

And so we drove on--the gliding silent motion of the carriage seemed

very subdued and gentle after the rush of the railway--on through dark

silent hedgeless woods, over the wide level country, which stretched

around us one vast dull plain under the shadow of the night. It was my

own country, I saw; and I put out my hand from the carriage window to

feel the fresh wind, which came over miles and miles of these broad

flats, unbroken by any obstacle. Not a hedgerow, scarcely a tree, and

neither passenger upon the way nor human habitation was to be seen in

the darkness--nothing but the dark soil, the wide, wide indescribable

distance, the fine breeze and the dim sky. The very road we were on was

a level straightforward line, which seemed to have no turnings, but to

go blindly forward, uninterrupted, as if it went to the end of the

world. All the charm which I used to feel in my native locality returned

upon me; space, and breadth, and freedom almost infinite, was in this

land which people called monotonous and dreary. My spirit rose, my heart

beat high. I felt my breast expand to the fresh wind--but when I turned

to Harry--Harry seemed quite unmoved by it; he was still buried in his

own dark thoughts.

The carriage was a private one, luxuriously fitted up, and I thought the

servants recognised him as servants recognise their masters; but I had

never been told that he was rich enough for this, and it joined with the

greater mystery to puzzle me. When I looked out again, I began to think

the way quite familiar to my eyes: that was not unlikely, being in

Cambridgeshire, but now they grew strangely familiar, even in the

darkness. Could the house Harry had taken be near Cottiswoode--my heart

beat still louder at the thought--I scarcely knew whether it pleased or

vexed me; yet I thought I would have pleasure in showing Edgar Southcote

how independent of jealousy or any mean feeling Harry's wife could be. I

looked out eagerly, recognising now a tree and now a cottage--we were

surely near the hamlet. Harry, too, stirred in his course; I thought he

watched me, but I was full of old thoughts and did not speak to him.

Yes! there were the elm-trees--the old avenue. Then I drew back in my

seat with tears in my eyes--eager as I was, I could not look out when we

were passing so near my own old home.

The shadows of great trees were over us; but I had leaned back in my

corner, and did not note them. Yes! I remembered that the public road

crossed the very end of that stately grand old avenue--how slowly we

were passing it! how long the overarching branches shadowed the

carriage! and the air grew closer, as if something interrupted it very

near. I did not look up, a strange fascination overpowered me--a moment

more, and the carriage wheeled round into an open space and stopt.

Almost before they drew up, Harry leaped from my side. Then he came

round, threw the door open, held out his arm to me to lift me out--how

his arms trembled--how hot his breath came upon my cheek--I could

scarcely recognise his hurried, trembling, agitated voice,

"Hester--welcome home."

Home! the great hall door stood open--the moon came out from behind a

cloud to throw a momentary gleam upon the house. Home! I thrust him

away, and sprang to the ground without his aid. He stood where I had

left him, drawing back, following me with his eyes, and pale as marble.

I stood alone, gazing up at the sculptured emblems upon the door. In a

moment, in a flood of despair and bitterness, the truth rushed upon

me--I had been trapped and betrayed--deceived like a fool--and every one

had known the man but I--I saw it all at a glance--I was his wife! his

wife! and he had brought me home.

In that wild moment, I cannot tell the impulses of frenzy which

possessed me. To escape--to rush away from him, over the pathless,

featureless country--through the darkness and the night--to be lost

somewhere for ever and for ever, never to come to his knowledge more--to

die upon this threshold and never enter it. It was vain! I was roused to

a sense of my true circumstances when I saw a band of servants

curtseying and gaping at me in the hall. My pride came to my aid, my

very passion supported me. I went in with a firm deliberate step, bowing

to them, and passed to the room which had been our dining-parlor, and

from which there was a glimmer of light. I had not looked towards him,

but I heard his step following me. I entered the room, it was very

bright and cheerful, well-lighted with a ruddy fire, and tea upon the

table. The glow of warmth and comfort in it struck me with an indignant

sense of my own sudden misery. He had put me without the pale of

enjoyment, I thought, for ever.

I did not take off my bonnet--I stood in the glow of the firelight,

turning my face to him as he came eagerly up to me. I stopped him as he

began to speak. "There is no need--no need!" said I, "I see your

mystery--pray do not speak to me--do not drive me mad to-night."

He turned away from me, clasping his hands with a passionate

exclamation--then he came back: "I deserve your reproaches, Hester, do

not spare them! but think what you said to me not half an hour ago--you

are my wife."

"Your wife--your wife--yes! there is the sting," I said with a wild

outburst, "his wife, and it is for ever!"

He went away from me to the other end of the room, and threw himself

down in a chair. I saw his suffering, but it did not move me. I thought

of nothing but my own wrong--a hard, cold, desperate indifference to

every one else seemed to come upon me. I saw myself tricked, cheated,

despised. Mr. Osborne, Alice, my father, strange and impossible though

the conjunction was, I almost thought I saw them all together smiling at

me. I could have gnashed my teeth when I thought how conscious every one

else was--how miserably blind was I--I could have thrown myself on the

floor and dashed my hot brow against the hearth--his hearth--his

house--his household sanctuary. But I rejected and hated it--it was not

mine.

I cannot tell how long I stood thus, he sitting far apart from me saying

nothing--it might have been hours--it might have been only moments, I

cannot tell. I think it was the falling of some ashes from the fire upon

the hearth which roused me; the trivial common sound brought a strange

awakening to my misery. I went and rang the bell. As I did so, he looked

up at me wistfully. "It is only for some one to show me my room," I

said. "May not I do that, Hester?" he asked. I think, perhaps, though it

is a strange, ungenerous thing to say so, that had he been less

overpowered, less dejected, had he boldly entered upon the subject then,

and compelled me to go over it, step by step, I would not have been so

bitter against him; but he was disarmed and broken down, less by my

reproaches than by his own feeling of guilt.

"Thank you, I will prefer a servant," said I, and when the woman came I

followed her upstairs. She led me to my own old room, the last room I

had left when we went away from Cottiswoode. My first glance at it

showed me that it was furnished with the greatest care and elegance,

and the door of a little room adjoining, which had been a lumber room in

our time, was opened, and from it came a glimpse of firelight; in the

bed-chamber, too, there was a fire, and everything in it looked so

bright, so pure and cheerful, that I could not glance anywhere without

an aggravation of bitterness--to place me here, was like placing a

revolted and defying spirit in some peaceful bower of heaven.

The servant who conducted me, was a fresh young country woman, five or

six years my senior. In the preoccupation of my own thoughts, I scarcely

looked at her, but she seemed to linger as if for a recognition; at last

she spoke. "I'm Amy Whitehead, please Miss--Madam," she said, confused

and blushing, "and my old uncle, ma'am, that was at the Hall afore, he's

been waiting, please, ever since we heard the news, to know when you was

coming home."

"Another time--another time, Amy," said I, hurriedly, half-stifled with

the sobs which I could restrain no longer. "Tell him I remember him very

well and you too; but I am fatigued and want rest to-night; and tell

your master, Amy, that I am about to go to rest, and will not come down

stairs again."

She went away, looking surprised and a little discontented. I daresay

this was strangely unlike Amy's simple notions of the homecoming of a

bride. When I was alone, I went to the glass and looked in my own face.

I was very pale, jaded, and wretched-looking; but it was myself--still

myself and no other. This half hour's misery had made no volcanic sign

upon my face. I tossed off my bonnet slowly, and all my wrappers--those

shawls which he had arranged round me so carefully--I flung them on the

floor where I stood. I did not know how to give some vent, to seek some

expression for my wretchedness. It pressed upon my heart and my brain,

with a close and terrible pressure; a great physical shock would have

been a relief to me. I could have leaped over a precipice, or plunged

into a river for ease to my crowding, thronging thoughts.

Then I threw myself down in a chair by the fire, and tried to be still.

I could not be still. I rose and wandered through the rooms; they were

furnished with the most careful regard to all my tastes and preferences.

I saw that, but when I saw it, it only increased my bitterness; the

dressing-room within, the little happy confidential room, scared me away

with its look of home and comfort. At last, I opened a window and looked

out upon the night; the same jessamine dropped its leaflets on the

window-sills, the same moaning wandering winds came upon my face, as

those I had known of old. It had begun to rain, and I listened to the

heavy drops falling among the scanty autumnal foliage, and bearing down

with them in their progress, showers of yellow leaves, and now and then

the fitful blast dashed the rain into my face, as I looked out upon the

dark trees--the dark indistinct country--the vast world of darkness and

space before me. The chill air and the rain refreshed me, I leaned far

out that the shower might beat upon my head, and then I thought I was

able to return to my seat and to be calm.

Yes! I was in Cottiswoode. I was Edgar Southcote's wife; at this thought

my heart burned. I cannot express the fiery glow of pain which

overpowered me by any other words. Since I entered this fatal house, I

seemed to have lost sight of Harry. Harry my tender wooer, my loving

bridegroom, the nearest and dearest of all who were near and dear to me,

had disappeared like a dream. In his place stood my scorned and rejected

cousin, he whose compassion had sought me out to make amends to me for a

lost inheritance. A hundred circumstances came upon my mind now to

direct suspicion to him--his desire to take our name, oh! heaven protect

my name! it was no suggestion of his love--it was a mean and paltry lie!

and he had succeeded--there was the sting--and my father's words came

back upon me with a strange significance, but only to place my father

among the other conspirators against my peace. The bond of our marriage

lay upon our hearts and souls, for ever and for ever--for ever and for

ever--not even in thought or for a moment could I deliver myself from

this bondage--even when I died I would belong to him, and the very name

upon my grave-stone would be that of Edgar Southcote's wife.

I was passing up and down steadily, holding my hands clasped together. I

could not be still and think of these things. I could not remember with

composure where I was, and how I had been brought here. I went to the

window again, and as I raised my hand to my face, I felt upon my neck

the little chain with my mother's miniature--with a wild access of

indignation I snatched it off; now I understood why it was that this

connected him with my mother--that they found in my circumstances some

resemblance to those of my father's shipwrecked life. I did not dash it

now out of my hand as I was minded to do; with trembling fingers I put

it away out of my reach, where the placid smile of that mild face could

not drive me wild again. What could she or such as she understand of

this misery which I was enduring now?

At this moment some one knocked lightly at the door. I went at once and

opened it--it was himself. I looked full at him, to find out how I could

have been deceived. This was not my Harry. Harry was nothing but an

ideal, and he was gone. This was the boy, my cousin, whom I had met upon

the road some years ago, with his stooping figure and his timid step.

Once more in my injured and passionate strength, full of bitter

resentment and proud scorn, I stood firm by Edgar Southcote, and he

humbled, downcast, self-reproachful, stood like a culprit before me.

"May I come in, Hester?" he asked.

I gave way to him in a moment, but I could not do it without a bitter

word. "You are the master of the house--I have no right to admit or to

exclude any one here."

He held up his hands with a wild deprecating gesture. "Am I not

sufficiently punished?" he said. "If I was wrong--criminal--think of

what the circumstances were, Hester. Can your heart find no excuse for

me? and see what my punishment is already. Instead of the natural joy

which a man looks for, when he carries his bride home, I have

anticipated this day with terror--and my fears are more than realized.

Have I become a different person from him to whom you said this very

night, 'I am your wife?' Am not I the same man you promised your heart

and love to? the same with whom you left your father's house? Hester! I

have deceived you--I do not try to make my fault less. Say it was a

deliberate, premeditated fault--I do not deny it, but I am not changed.

Condemn it, but be merciful to me."

"No, you are not the same man," I answered, "you are not Harry, you are

Edgar Southcote. I never gave either hand or heart to you, I gave them

to one who was not capable of fraud--who knew nothing of a lie--he is

gone and dead, and I will never find him more either in heaven or earth.

You have killed my Harry--you have killed my heart within me. I never

molested you. I never appealed to you for pity. I had forgotten

Cottiswoode; it was nothing to me. Why did you come with your false

compassion to steal away my hopes, and my heart, and my youth?"

"Compassion, Hester? where is there any compassion in the matter?" he

exclaimed; "you show none to me."

"No--I only want justice," said I; "oh! I know you have been generous--I

know it was a kind meaning, a charitable impulse, to restore to me my

father's land. Do not let us speak of it, if I am to keep my reason

now--I fancied such a thing could never happen to me. I did not think I

could have been so humiliated. I trusted you--I trusted you with all my

heart--will you let me stay here, and leave me to myself? I want to

collect myself--to think of what is all over and past, and of what

remains."

"What remains? what will you do, Hester?" he cried, growing very pale.

But I could not tell--I looked round me with a dreary desolate search

for something to support me. I had no one to flee to--not one in all

the world. What a change since yesterday--since this morning, when I had

everything in having him.

I remember that he came to me and kissed my hand--that he bent over it,

and entreated me to forgive him; that I turned away and would not look

at him, nor listen, with a hard and breathless obduracy, and that then

he said, "Good-night--good-night!" and slowly went away.

When I was alone, my desolation, my wretchedness, my solitude burst upon

me in an agony--he had gone away--he had granted my petition--I was

alone! I stood for a long time quite silent, where he had left me, then

I went back to my chair; I fancied the very foundations of the earth

were breaking up. I had no longer any one to trust to; every one had

deceived me, every creature I loved or cared for was in the

conspiracy--even my father's suspicions must have come to certainty

before I left him. Yet nobody had warned me--oh! it was cruel! cruel!

for thus it came about that I had no one to go to in my distress, no one

to seek refuge with, that my impulse was to turn away from all my

friends, to seek a dreary shelter in this loneliness, which struck to my

heart to-night, with such a terrible pang. What was I to do?

I could not think of that; my mind went back and back again to what was

past. I began to follow out the evidences, the certainties which made it

clear to Alice, and to my father, and which ought to have made it clear

to me. I had no wish to go back to them. I was indifferent to

everything; I only felt that in a moment a bitter antagonism had sprung

up between him and me; that, according to our love, would be our enmity

and opposition, and that even in our variance and strife, and with this

unforgiven wrong between us, we were bound to each other for ever.

All this night, when I thought to have been so happy, I sat alone in

that chair. At last, when it grew late, and the fire burned low, and I

felt the chill of the night, my fatigue overpowered me, and I fell

asleep. My dreams were of vague distress and tribulation, misfortune

and misery, which I could not comprehend; but when I awoke, I found

myself laid on the bed, carefully wrapped up, though still dressed, and

the gray of dawn coming in through the windows. I could not recollect

myself for the moment, nor how I had come to be here; but when I lifted

my head, I saw him seated where I had seated myself last night, bending

over a bright fire, with his arm supporting his head. When he heard me

stir, he looked up; he had not been sleeping to-night, although I had,

and then I recollected all that had passed, and that it was he who must

have lifted me here, and covered me so carefully. His face was pale now,

and his eyes dark and heavy; he seemed almost as listless and

indifferent as I was--for though he looked up, he made no advance to me.

I sprang from my rest, and threw off from me the shawls I had been

wrapped in; then he rose and offered me his chair. I did not take it--we

stood looking at each other--then he took my hand and held it, and

looked at me wistfully. I said a cold "Good-morning," and turned my head

away. When I did that, he dropped my hand, and withdrew me a little--and

then he seemed to make an effort to command himself, and spoke to me in

a voice which I scarcely recognised--so clear it was, and calm. Ah! he

could be something else than an ardent or a penitent lover; the voice of

the man was new to me. I looked up at him instantly, with a respect

which I could not help; but we had entered upon another day. These days

of my life crowded on each other, and to this chill, real dawn, and not

to the wild, passionate night which preceded it, belonged what he said.

THE THIRD DAY.

The grey morning looked in chill and damp from the windows, the bough of

jessamine fluttered upon the glass, the rain pattered on the leaves. It

was the hour of night and day which is coldest, keenest, most ungenial,

and we stood together, but apart--as pale, as chill, as heavy as the

morning--quieted, yet still trembling with the agitation of the night.

"There is a messenger below from Cambridge. I sent on word of our

arrival last night," he said; "your father is not well, and wishes to

see you. I have ordered the carriage to be ready, and have been watching

here till you awoke. It is very early, but I know you will not care for

the discomfort--your father has expressed a strong desire to see you

immediately, and he is very weak, they say."

"Do you mean he is dying?" I asked firmly, though I could not raise my

voice above a whisper.

"I mean he is very ill. Yes, Hester! it does not become me to deceive

you any more."

I turned abruptly from him, and went to put on my bonnet. He lingered,

waiting for me--when I was ready, he took some of the wrappers I had

worn on the journey over his arm, and went down stairs before me. The

servants were astir already, and I saw breakfast prepared in the room

which I had been in last night--he held the door open for me, and

involuntarily I entered--I did not say anything. Indeed, what with the

dreadful bewilderment and uncertainty of my own position, and the pang

of foreboding that I was only called there when my father was in

extremity, I had little power to say a word--I sat down passively on the

chair he set for me by the fire, while he ordered the carriage to come

round. I accepted without a word the coffee he brought me, and tried to

drink it--I did not feel as if I had any will at all; but did everything

mechanically, as though it was imposed upon me by a stronger will, which

I could not resist. No longer the agitated youth of yesterday--the

self-reproachful and unforgiven lover, whose happiness hung on my

breath, and to whom I was ruthless, obdurate, and without pity, he was

so different this morning that I could scarcely think him the same

person. This was a man who had the sole right to think for me, to guard

me, perhaps to control me, whether I would or no--I was not strong

enough, at this moment, to resist his tacit and unexpressed authority. I

only wondered at it vaguely in the languor and weariness which was upon

me--I was worn out by last night's excitement, I had a dull terror of

expostulation in my mind; but I had not heart enough to be impatient. My

faculties were all benumbed and torpid. At another time, these few

moments of waiting would have been agony to me--but they were not so

now.

Then I heard the wheels at the door, and rose to go; he followed me

closely--assisted me in, wrapped me round with the shawls he carried,

and then took his place by my side. I made no remonstrance, I said

nothing--I submitted to all he did with a dull acquiescence, and we

drove off at a great pace. I think it did strike me for a moment how

bitterly everything was changed since I stepped from that carriage on

the previous night. Once more I leaned back and did not look at the

noble old elms in the avenue; the shadow of their branches over us, made

my heart sick, and I closed my eyes till we were once more dashing along

the free unshadowed monotonous road. A dreary and sad monotony was on

those fresh, broad plains this morning. The sky was nothing but one vast

cloud--the fitful, chill breeze, brought dashes of rain against the

windows--the country looked like an uninhabited desert. Distance,

flight, an endless race, away, away, away, towards the skies; but it was

not fleeing from my fate. My fate was here beside me, the companion of

my journey--we could not escape from each other. I was his evil

fortune, and he was mine.

We did not say a word all the time, though we were nearly three hours on

the way. Then came the familiar Cambridge streets--then he rose and

whispered something to the coachman on the box; we subdued our pace

immediately, and quietly drew up at the well-known door. Our younger

servant, Mary, was looking from it eagerly--when she saw us, she left it

open and ran in--I suppose to say I had come. He helped me to alight,

and I went in. I went slowly though I was so near. I wanted to see some

one else first--some one else before I saw my father.

At the foot of the stairs, Alice met me; she came up to me, joy

struggling with her gravity to kiss and bless me, as she had been used

to do. I turned away from her with a harsh and forbidding gesture, and

would not let her touch me. Her eyes filled with tears--her cheeks

reddened and grew pale again. She muttered something in a confused and

troubled undertone, of which I only heard the word "pardon!" and then

she said in a voice which a great effort made steady and

articulate--"Your father waits you, Miss Hester; will you come?"

I followed her in silence. I did not know what I was to say, or how to

behave to my father. My heart swelled as though it would break, when I

went along the familiar passages, where I had come and gone so lately in

the gladness of my youth. I had a dull, heavy, throbbing pain in my

forehead, over my eyes; but I followed her firmly, without a word. My

father's bed-chamber looked only upon the ivy-covered wall of the close,

and upon some gardens beyond it. The sun never came in there, and it was

dim at all times; how much dimmer on this dreary morning, when there was

no sunshine even on the open plains. There was a fire in the grate, but

it burned dull like everything else. Before I looked at my father, I had

taken in all the little accessories around him in one glance. The

bottles upon the table, the drinks they were giving him, even the gleam

of the wet ivy upon the top of the wall. My father himself lay,

supported by pillows, breathing hard and painfully, and was very pale,

but with a hectic spot burning on his cheek. He put out his thin white

hand to me as I approached him. The diamond, a strange token of his

former self, still shone upon his finger; it caught my eye in the

strange torpor and dulness of my thoughts--and in this hour of extremity

I remember wondering why he still chose to wear this favorite ring.

"You have come home in time, Hester," he said faintly.

I put off my bonnet, and sat down beside him. My face and my heart were

still quite dull. I do not think I expressed any emotion. I spoke only

to Alice, and to her as coldly as if she had been a perfect stranger.

"Will you tell me what he must have--show me the things; and if you

please, leave us alone."

Silently, as if she was not able to speak, she pointed out the medicines

to me, and then went slowly away. I followed her to the door, for I saw

that she beckoned me. How changed I must have been! for Alice seemed

almost afraid to speak to me, whom she had been used to call her child.

"Miss Hester!" she whispered, with a faltering eager tone, and under her

breath, "do not tell him--for pity's sake do not let him know what you

have found out."

I made her no answer, but closed the door and came back to his bedside.

There I sat down again in silence. I had nothing to say to him--nothing

to say to him! neither of earth nor heaven!

"What have you to tell me, Hester?" said my father, at last. "I am about

leaving you--are you aware of it?--do you know that this is the day

which I looked forward to, when I asked you to place your fortune in my

hands?"

"Yes, father!" I was stupid, sullen, dead. I could show no feeling, for

indeed I felt none yet.

"I am glad that you decided as you did, Hester," continued my father; "I

have now no weight upon my conscience--no dread that I have compromised

your happiness; and you have a protector and a home. You are happy, my

love?"

"Did you say happy? oh, yes!" I said with almost a laugh; "happy, very

happy, papa."

Strange as it seemed to me, he appeared contented with what I said--he

made no more reference to it; he lifted my hand gently up and down in

his own.

"And I am going away," he said slowly, "going away, Hester--where?"

Where? the word struck me with a strange superstitious terror. For the

first tune I was roused to look eagerly and inquiringly in his face.

"Not to the family grave, Hester!" he said with a smile of awful

amusement--yes, amusement, there is no other word, "that is only a stage

in the journey--where am I going beyond that? Have you nothing to say?"

"Father--father!" I said wildly, with a breathless horror.

"Ay, but you cannot pilot me!" said my father; "and by-and-bye my ears

will be deaf, should all the voices in the world echo my name."

I bent over him, holding him with terror unspeakable. Little training in

religion had fallen to my share; but I had the natural sentiment--the

natural dread; and I forgot everything else in the deadly fear which

made me cling to my father now.

"Why do you not tell me to be resigned?" said my father. "Do you know

what I am setting out upon, Hester? Distance, distance, distance--vaster

than anything in our moorland--a dark, solitary journey, where no one

knows the way. Death! who believes in _that?_ it is but an arbitrary

word--one of the names we use for things we cannot comprehend; and no

one tells me where is the end."

"Oh, father, father, it is in the Bible!" cried I.

"Yes, it is in the Bible. Are you afraid I do not believe it, child? I

believe it--but I see no clearer for my faith," said my father. "I

believe it as I believe that Columbus discovered a new world. But what

is Columbus and his new world to me?"

"But, papa, the Saviour--" I said, timidly, and in an agony of terror.

"Ay, the Saviour--I believe in him, Hester, but I do not know Him!" said

my father, in a hard and painful voice. "Yes--He has gone this road,

they say. _He_ might take one by the hand in this mysterious

journey--but I know him not."

"Let me send for some one, father," I cried; "there are, surely, some

who know. Let me send for a clergyman--papa, do not refuse me. He could

tell us, and he could pray."

"Telling would do me little service, Hester," said my father, faintly,

with again that strange, awful smile upon his mouth; "it is not

information I want. It is--ah! breath--breath!"

A sudden spasm had seized him; he had been speaking too much, and he was

worn out. I raised him up in my arms when I understood his gestures,

that he might have air. How his breast heaved and panted with those

terrible struggles! I supported him, but with nervous trembling arms. I

feared the sight of this mortal suffering--it was dreadful to me--for I

had never seen the anguish of the bodily frame before.

When he was eased, and the spasm wore off, I laid him down exhausted. He

was no longer able to speak; but as I watched him, I saw his eyes, in

which shone all his mind, as clear and full as ever, untouched and

independent of his malady, passing with a considerate and steady gaze

from one part of the room to another. I could not comprehend this mood.

Not with disquietude, nor with anxiety, did he ask, "Where?" He was

neither disturbed nor unhappy; he seemed to have no fear. That smile had

returned to his face; he still could be amused; and no human emotions

seemed to break up his deep, deep calm.

But I had no pleasure in seeing his composure. Horror, grief, distress,

overpowered me as I sat watching him. Oh, that smile, that smile! Was

this journey the only one in the world which a man should take

composedly, without knowing where he was bound? I had the common

youthful ideas about age, and deathbeds, and death. I gave the natural

awe, the natural solemnity, to the wonderful termination, transition,

change--the end of our life here--the beginning of the other world. It

shocked and struck me with terror, to see him lie there upon the brink

of it, asking "Where?" with a smile. I remembered all the common sayings

about the death of good men. I remembered Addison's call to some one to

come and see how a Christian could die. I wondered if there was

ostentation in this, to set against the speculative amusement with which

my father had spoken. Everything else was swept from my mind by this. I

forgot the hard pressure of my own unhappiness, and it was only recalled

to me for a moment when I thought of appealing to Harry, and with a

shock and bitter pang recollected that I had no Harry now, but that only

Edgar Southcote waited below--waited for the issue of this tragedy to

take me home.

For an hour or two after my father lay dozing, taking no notice of me

save when I gave him his medicine. He seemed, indeed, to sleep very

often for a few minutes at a time; but if I chanced to look away, when

my glance returned to him, I invariably saw those open, living eyes,

full of strength and understanding, noting all they saw with a perfect

intelligence which struck me strangely. His mind was not dying. I had

never seen anything that gave me such a wonderful idea of life and vigor

as those glances from my father's deathbed. He looked what was

approaching in the face, and quailed not at it. Change was before him,

not conclusion. With his living soul he looked into a vague, vast

future, and knew not what it was; but Death, as he said, was but an

arbitrary term--it meant nothing to that inquiring, speculative, active

soul.

After a long interval he seemed to revive and strengthen, and turned his

eyes upon me again.

"And you are happy, Hester--are you happy?" he said, looking closely in

my face.

I turned my eyes away--I think it was the first lie I had ever told--and

I said only, "Yes!"

But he was wandering once more among his own thoughts, and heeded not my

looks, nor what they meant.

"Life is a strange problem," he said, with the sombre shadow which it

used to wear, returning upon his face. "I am about to find the solution

of it, Hester--all my existence centres in one event. I have suffered

one act to overshadow my best years--that was my great error--what a

fool I was! because I failed in one thing, I threw everything away."

"Because the failure in that one thing poisoned all your life!" I

exclaimed, "oh! do not blame yourself, father! the blame did not lie

with you."

"What was that to me if the penalty did?" said my father, in his old

reasoning tone--a tone which contrasted so strangely with the feeble

voice, and the great weakness in which he spoke. "One act should not

poison life, Hester! not even for a woman, how much less for a man!

There are greater things in this world than marrying, or giving in

marriage."

He spoke with an emphasis of scorn, which made me tremble more and more.

Alas! I saw that still in his very heart rankled this poisoned sorrow;

and I shuddered to think that the same doom was mine. That I would carry

to my death this same bitterness--that my life was already overshadowed

as his had been, and that I was ready, like him, to throw everything

away.

"If it should be that I am to find out the wherefore of these dark

mysteries; if that is the congenial occupation in the place whither I

go;" he paused suddenly when he had said so much--though I watched him

eagerly, and listened, he did not continue. He fell into immediate

silence, and again he began to sleep.

The confidence with which he spoke to me was strange. I scarcely could

understand--perhaps his weakness had some share in it, perhaps my

absence, and it was the first time I ever had been absent from home--had

inclined his heart towards his only child, and perhaps he could not help

those audible wanderings of his thoughts, as strength and life failed

him, and he gathered all his powers to his heart to keep his

identity--to be himself. When he was awake I saw his eyes, I scarcely

could believe in what was coming; but when he slept, I thought I could

see moment by moment how the current ebbed and ebbed away.

During one of these intervals of sleep, the doctor came in, and with him

Mr. Osborne. With that practised scientific eye, which it is so dreadful

to mark for our dearest ones, the doctor looked at him, and shook his

head. He was lying so solemnly with his closed eyes, and not a movement

in his frame, so pale now, so feeble, so perfectly at rest, that a pang

of momentary terror struck to my heart; but he was not gone. He did not

wake till the doctor had gone away, and Mr. Osborne was left standing

beside me. I never raised my head, nor greeted him. I did not answer his

whisper of satisfaction at finding me here--even by my father's bedside.

I would not meet as a friend a man who had wilfully snared and betrayed

me.

When my father opened his eyes, he saw his friend by his bedside; but

his eyes were not so full nor so clear, nor so bright with life and

intelligence as they had been--there was a change--he stirred nervously.

"Ha! Osborne, my good fellow!" he said, "I am just setting out--any

messages, eh? any word to--to--Helen."

After he had said the name, a momentary color came to his cheek, he

lifted his hand heavily, and drew it over his brow.

"What did I say? am I raving? no, no, I know you all! stay here, Helen,"

the diamond on his finger had caught his eye--it was I whom he was

calling by that name, and already his faculties failed to distinguish it

from mine, "here," he repeated, trying to draw off the ring, "here--take

it from me--wear it--wear it--'tis a misfortune--keep it till you die."

I took it from him, and he seemed to sink into a stupor. I never

withdrew my eyes from him. The day had come and gone while I had been

watching, and now it was night. Lights were brought into the room. I

felt some one come behind me, and stand there at my chair; but I did

not look who it was. Oh! that silent dim death-room, with no sound in it

but his breath! Mr. Osborne leaned, hiding his face upon the pillow of

the bed. I heard one suppressed sob behind me, and knew it was Alice;

and I knew, too, instinctively that though I did not see him, there was

another in the room. But I never moved nor turned my head; not a tear

came to my dry eye, my lips were parched and hot; but neither sobbing

nor weeping were possible to me. I sat still by that bedside, in full

possession of my mind and faculties. I never observed more keenly, more

closely, more minutely in all my life--I felt no grief, I knew no

emotion, I only watched and watched with intense attention and

consciousness to see my father pass away.

And there lay he--his speech was gone from him--his voice was no more to

be heard in mortal ears--his soul was within those dark closing eternal

gates--he was almost away. Suddenly he opened his dim eyes, and looked

about him wildly, and said, "Helen!" Mr. Osborne turned to me with a

rapid gesture to seek the miniature on my neck. "Let him see her--let

him see her, why have you left it behind?" he said, in a whisper, which

had all the effort of a loud cry. How vain it would have been! my

father's eyes closed once more in a moment--opened again to look round

upon us with a scared bewildered glance--then were shut closely. I

thought he had fallen asleep, but there was suddenly a movement and

rustle among them all, a faint stir--I could not describe it, as if

something had been accomplished. I understood what it meant, it went to

my heart like a knife. Yes! it was so--it was so--I was standing among

those who had wronged me, and he was gone.

I did not move, though they did. Mr. Osborne came and put his hand upon

my head, and bade God bless me! and said, "All is well with him--all is

well with him, dear child! go with Alice, this is no place for you;" and

Alice stole to my side and put her arm round me, and entreated, "Miss

Hester, darling, my own child, come and rest!"

I shook them both away--they were weeping, both of them--but not a tear

came to me. I was the only one quite self-possessed. I did not say a

word to either; I kept my seat, and shook them from me when they

attempted to remonstrate. No! I could not yield to their false kindness,

I would rather be alone--alone, as I was indeed alone in the world.

Then he came to me--when I saw him approaching, I rose. "Do not say

anything," I said; "if I must leave my dear father, I will go to my own

room; let no one come to me, I will not be interrupted to-night."

He followed me as I went to the door--he followed me along the passage,

perhaps he thought I needed his support, but I was firmer in my step

than he was. I knew that his heart was yearning over me in my new

grief--I knew it better than if he had told me--but my heart was not

softened to him. I turned when I reached my door. "Why do you follow

me?" said I, "is it not enough that I have lost everything?--leave me in

peace to-night."

He held out his hands to me, he caught mine. "Oh! Hester, Hester, weep,

and weep with me," he cried, "do not condemn me to this outer

darkness--let me be with you in your grief."

I drew myself away from him. "No one can be with me in my grief, I am

desolate," I said, but I waited for no answer. I closed my door, and he

went away from the threshold--this threshold to which he had come for me

when I was a bride.

I went in and shut to my door. I shut the door of my heart, and closed

myself up alone in this dreary, solitary place. I was not without a

consciousness even now that I had left them all longing, anxious,

miserable about me; but I felt as though they were all enemies--all

enemies, as if I had not a friend in this wretched, forsaken world. I

did not think what this real blow was which had struck upon me. I only

felt my dreary, hopeless solitude, and the desire I had to be left here

unmolested. I thought it would please me to see no more a human face

again. I was in a wilderness more desolate than any Eastern

waste--there were no hearers above me, and no human fellowship around.

God and the Lord were words to me. I believed, but I did not know

them--I could not seek refuge there, and here there was not one--not one

of those I had loved so well, but had betrayed me.

My little room, my bower, my girlish sanctuary which I had left in my

bride's dress, I had returned to now, worse than a widow. Quietly and

mechanically I began to take off my dress--it was not grief but misery

which filled my heart, and there is a great difference between them. My

wretchedness stupified me, and when I laid down my head upon my pillow,

I fell at once into a heavy, deep sleep.

THE FOURTH DAY.

It was a clear, cold, sunshiny autumn morning, the atmosphere was full

of sunshine, yet there was little warmth in the air, and there were thin

misty clouds upon the sky, which looked like vapors which the earth had

thrown off from her own still bosom, and the wind carried up unchanged.

Yet out of doors it was a beautiful fresh day, and the sun beat in

through our darkened windows with a full bright flash in mockery of our

sombre shade. A dreary dull excitement was in the house--it was the

funeral day.

I had been living a strange, miserable, solitary life. Every day Alice

brought me some food, and I took it mechanically. Every day I went down

stairs, and heard them speaking together. I listened when they addressed

me, and answered them with perfect composure. I knew all the

arrangements--by no pretext that I was not able, did I permit anything

to be hid from me. I was quite able--my frame was strong--my heart was

stunned--I could endure anything--there need have been no fears for me.

But my intercourse with them went no further. I heard what they had to

say, and answered, but I suffered no approach towards friendship. Alice

waited upon me with assiduous tenderness, but I never spoke to her. Mr.

Osborne appealed to our long acquaintance--to my father's old, old

friendship for him--to his love for mine and me. My heart was steeled. I

made no response. I went and came among them alone--alone--as I was to

be alone all my life.

And he--he was always there--always ready to interpose for me if I

expressed a wish, or opposed any intention of Mr. Osborne, who managed

everything. If I was likely to be annoyed by any importunity, I knew

that he interposed and freed me from it. I seemed to see everything he

did, present or absent, by some strange magic. He did not persecute me

with vain endeavors after a reconciliation--he left me to myself--we

scarcely spoke to each other; yet when he was away I chafed and fretted

at his absence, and when he returned I knew how he looked--what he

did--as well as if I had flown to meet him, or hung upon him with a

young wife's foolish fondness. We were evermore parted, yet evermore

united--this feud and antagonism between us was as strong a bond as

love.

My father was to be laid in the family grave--this was at a little

solitary church half way between Cambridge and Cottiswoode. Some haughty

Southcote in the old time had desired to be laid at the boundary and

extreme line of his own lands, and hence had arisen a little desolate

church and graveyard, and the mausoleum of the race. They had arranged

that Edgar Southcote was to be the chief mourner at this lonely

funeral--_that_ I could not bear--I could not see my father carried to

his grave with only them two--Mr. Osborne and _him_, following up the

last journey. I said nothing, but I prepared myself--I wrapped a great

black cloak about me, over my mourning dress--black, black, black--it

was very neat. I veiled my head and my face, and went out from these

doors like something that belonged to the midnight, and not to the day.

Alice stood and gazed at me aghast while I robed myself; and when I

turned to go out, she fell down at my feet, and clasped her arms round

me, and cried and pleaded: "Do not go--it will kill you," she cried. I

drew my dress out of her hands and bade her rise. "It will not kill me,"

I said bitterly, "yet if it did, it would be well."

As I went down stairs I met Mr. Osborne. He stood before me in

amazement. "Hester, Hester, you will not think of this!"

"Let me pass!" I said, "let some one who loved him go with him--let me

pass--no one shall prevent me--he has none in the world of his own blood

but me."

"My child, my child, you cannot bear it--all shall be done as you shall

approve," he said anxiously. I did not answer, but passed him with an

impatient gesture. In the close, I found yet another interruption--but

_he_ did not try to prevent me--he followed me into the carriage--he

knew me better than they did.

And so we set out upon our dreary journey--once more I looked from the

carriage windows, and wondered if this day was but a common day to the

common people round. Once we met a marriage party--a gayer party than

ours had been, five weeks ago, with young bright faces, and smiles and

jests, and all the natural tokens of a time of joy. I looked at them

with the strangest interest. I wondered which was the bride and what was

appointed to come to her. Should she be so miserable as I, or was mine a

solitary instance? You would fancy a mourner had little room for such

thoughts--but I had room for every kind of thought--no wild fancy or

speculation in that slow dreadful journey came amiss to me.

Everything looked different from what it had been when I came by this

same road to my father's death-bed; now the people were at work in the

fields; there were cries in the air--passengers on the road, everywhere,

life and motion, sunshine and hope. I saw the rustic people pause at

their labors to look at our solemn procession; I could fancy how they

asked each other who it was that came this way to his last rest. My

thoughts went back to that night seven years ago, when my father and I

drove this way together, leaving our ancestral home. We had never been

on the road again, so far as I knew, never till now, and now we were

taking him to a home of which no man should ever dispossess him, to rest

with his forefathers for ever.

A very low rude wall, one of those fences of the country, was round the

church-yard, the church itself was small and poor--a humble little

chapel, where only a few scattered worshippers ever came. I do not know

why it had been permitted to fall so much into neglect, for the family

tomb was in a little chapel closely adjoining and opening from it. This

little shelter of our race was paved with old tombstones, every one

bearing the name of a Southcote, and the walls were covered with tablets

to the memory of the dead of our house. There were two raised tombs

besides, with recumbent figures, memorials of some more distinguished or

more ostentatious than the rest; and this house of the dead was lighted

by a small Gothic window, filled with scraps of ancient glass; here,

under the shelter of this groined roof, within these inscribed and

monumental walls, and not where the free air of heaven should visit his

grave, we were to lay my father. It was well--better for him than the

green grass, the flowers, the sunshine, and the outer human world, was

the little family chapel where, withdrawn from the common dust, his race

and kindred waited till the end.

In silence and solitude I stood at the head while it was being laid in

its place. I did not weep, nor cry, nor faint. I never faltered for an

instant from my firmness. In my cold, cold composure I stood and looked

on. The words of the service never woke me, yet I heard every one of

them. I noticed the very tone of the clergyman's voice, and the habitual

cadence of the words. I knew it was because he said them so often that

they rang to that measure. I observed everything; not the smallest

incident escaped my eye. By and bye all was silent again--it was over,

and we had to go away.

Only then did I linger for a moment--I looked round upon this well

frequented place, where so many had been brought and had been left

before. I glanced over all the names, how full it was. This place was

home. The house we were all born to inhabit--the permanent, lasting

dwelling-place. The new comer was not alone here; he was gathered to his

fathers; he was entered upon his last and sweet inheritance. I came away

with a steady step--I think almost with a smile upon my face. My father

had many friends around and beside him--only I was alone.

And then we set out to return to our life, and left the dead behind.

Oh! life inexorable--cruel! how it sweeps upon the traces of the last

slow journey, and beats out the mourner's footprints with its race and

tumult! It was not hard to leave him, for he was well; but it was hard

to note our quickened pace, to know that we were going back to

every-day. No one spoke--I was thankful for that--even Mr. Osborne did

not break upon the silence. Once more the people in the fields looked up

to see us going back again, and the light came from the west, and the

labors were almost over, and we had left our new inhabitant in the

grave; that was all the world knew of us as we went home.

When we entered, I saw the table was spread, and it occurred to me, that

at my father's table we ought to be represented, not by Edgar Southcote,

nor by Mr. Osborne; and when I had taken off my mantle, I returned and

took my place. I saw Mr. Osborne look at me with extreme and

uncomprehending wonder. He could not understand my motive, nor what he

called the rule of my conduct. He did everything very properly himself,

and conformed to all the usual decorums, and he did not know how to

judge me. I was aware of his wondering, and almost disapproving glance.

I was aware that I ought not to have been able, on this day, to take my

place here as I did; but I was not moved by knowing it; I only felt an

indignant determination that neither of them two should rule at my

father's board--this was his house still, and I was his heir.

When the meal was over, I returned to my room; but I could no longer

rest there--there was a visible void in the house--a dull ache and

vacancy in my heart. I wandered about from room to room, to his

bed-chamber where he died, and where he had been lying like a king in

state and rest; from thence I went to the library where his chair stood

by the table, where his desk and his books seemed almost to have been

used to-day.

There I sat down in my dull, vacant misery; the door was closed, the

house was still--save for the branches waving in the evening wind across

the window, there was neither sound nor motion near. I was quite alone.

I sat looking at the diamond ring upon my finger, his last gift. I

wondered what he meant by saying it was a misfortune. A misfortune--I

had no need, yet no fear of such in my withered life. One great

calamity, as I thought, had put me beyond the reach of fate. "No, no!" I

repeated to myself unconsciously aloud, "fate has done its worst--I can

suffer no more. I can lose no more--there is no misfortune left possible

to me."

As I spoke I heard some motion in the room, and starting saw Mr. Osborne

rise from behind the curtain where he had been reading. In proportion to

my former confidence in him, was my resentment against him now, and I

became very angry when I perceived he had been watching me.

"Then you have made up your mind to be miserable," he said, somewhat

sharply, as he came up to me. "This is very foolish, Hester! it is worse

than foolish--it is criminal, and it is weak--you forget your natural

grief to nurse your wrath, and confirm yourself in a sense of injury.

Where is your poor mother's miniature which I gave you for a charm to

keep those evil thoughts away? It might have soothed your father's last

hour, if you had not thus embittered your heart. Child! child! it is

easier to make misery than to heal it--do not throw your life away."

"I have no life to throw away," said I, sullenly, "it has been taken

from me and all its hopes. I do not care if I should die to-morrow."

"Do you think that those who make such speeches are in the best mind for

dying?" said Mr. Osborne. "Dying is a solemn matter, Hester! and can

only be done once. But at present, living is more in your way. Do you

know that this revengeful passion of yours will estrange all sympathy

from you? Men and women who have lived long in the world have generally

known some _real_ calamities, Hester! it is only boys and girls who can

afford to indulge in despair, and say fate has done its worst. You do

not know what you say--instead of fate and its curse, Providence has

blessed you more greatly than you are able to perceive."

"Not Providence--Providence never works by falsehood," cried I.

Mr. Osborne's face flushed with displeasure. "You are very bitter,

Hester, very harsh in your judgment," he said, "and I could not bear

with this passion of yours so long if you had not been a dear child to

me for many a year--for your father's and your mother's sake I overlook

your resentment against myself, though I have not deserved it; but,

Hester, beware--it is all very well now to be heroically miserable; but

you are young--you have a long life before you; and, however long you

may dwell upon your injury, some time or other you will begin to want

and long for the happiness which now you despise. Hester! come, I will

confess you have had a hard initiation into the cares of life; be a

woman and a brave one, let us see no more of the girl's whims and

humors. I can promise you all tenderness for your honest sorrow, Hester,

but not for your wilful wretchedness."

"I ask no tenderness, no sympathy. I will not accept it," I cried,

starting from my seat. "You know I have not a true friend in the

world--who should sympathize with me? every one of you has deceived me!"

"If that is your conclusion, so be it," said Mr. Osborne, walking to his

seat. "I can only hope that your true friends will not be lost, even

before you have real need for them, and that when you come back to look

for it, Hester, and find your right senses, your happiness will not be

entirely out of your reach."

I did not wait to hear any more, but left the room, unable to speak with

anger and indignation--the stupor of my misery was broken, I was roused

almost to madness. It was not yet a week since I had fallen from my

happy confidence into this dark abyss of falsehood and betrayal, and

already they blamed _me_--already they called me resentful, revengeful,

obdurate. I, the victim of their successful plots, I who stood alone and

no one with me! I saw at once how I would be judged on all sides, how

every one would condemn me--how light _his_ offence would be in the eyes

of the world--how unpardonable mine! If I had been like to yield before,

I could not have yielded after that. I set myself fairly to meet it all.

He should have justice! justice! and neither deceit nor pity from me.