DEATH.
Nothing more was said until we reached the cottage. Mrs. Porterfield and
the physician met us at the entrance. We had come too late!
She was dead. They had found her so when they despatched the servant in
quest of me; but they were not certain of the fact, and the servant was
instructed to say she was only very ill. The physician was called in as
soon as possible; but had declared himself, as soon as he came, unable
to do anything for her. He had bled her; and, before our arrival, had
already pronounced upon her disease. It was apoplexy!
“Apoplexy!” I exclaimed, involuntarily. Kingsley gave me a look.
“Yes, sir, apoplexy,” continued the learned gentleman. “She must have
had several fits. It is evident that she was conscious after the first,
for she appears to have endeavored to reach the door. She was found at
the entrance, lying upon the floor. When I saw her, she must have been
lifeless a good hour.” [The reader will be reminded of the melancholy
details in the ease of Miss Liuulon-L. E. L.-whose fate is still a
mystery.]
He added sundry reasons, derived from her appearance, which he assured
us were conclusive on this subject; but to these I gave little heed. I
did not stop to listen. I hurried to the chamber, closed the door, and
was alone with my victim, with my wife!
My victim!--my wife!
I stood above her inanimate form. How lovely in death--but, oh! how
cold! I looked upon her pale, transparent cheeks and forehead, through
which the blue lines of veins, that were pulseless now, gleamed out,
showing the former avenues of the sweet and blessed life. I was disarmed
of my anger while I gazed. I bent down beside her, took the rigid
fingers of her hand in mine, and pressed my lips upon the bloodless but
still beautiful forms of hers.
I remembered her youth and her beauty--the glowing promise of her mind,
and the gentle temper of her heart. I remembered the dear hours of our
first communion--how pure were our delights--how perfect my felicity.
How we moved together as with one being only--beside the broad streams
of our birthplace--under the shelter of shady pines--morning, and noon,
and in the star-lighted night--never once dreaming that an hour like
this would come!
And she seemed so perfect pure, as she was so perfect lovely! Never
did I hear from her lips sentiment that was not--not only virtuous, but
delicate and soft--not only innocent but true--not only true but fond!
Alas! so to fall--so too yield herself at last! To feel the growth of
rank passion--to surrender her pure soul and perfect form to the base
uses of lust--to be no better than the silly harlot, that, beguiled by
her eager vanity, surrenders the precious jewel in her trust, to the
first cunning sharper that assails her with a smiling lie!
Oh God! how these convictions shook my frame! I had no longer strength
for thought or action. I was feebler than the child, who, lost in the
woods, struggles and sinks at last, through sheer exhaustion, into
sobbing slumber at the foot of the unfeeling tree. I did not sob. I had
no tears. But at intervals, the powers of breathing becoming choked,
and my struggles for relief were expressed in a groan which I vainly
endeavored to keep down. The sense of desolation was upon me much more
strongly than that of either crime or death. I did not so much feel that
she was guilty, as that I was alone! That, henceforth, I must for ever
be alone. This was the terrible conviction;--and oh! how lone! To lessen
its pangs, I strove to recall the fault for which she perished--to renew
the recollection of those thousand small events, which, thrown together,
had seemed to me mountains of rank and reeking evidence against her. But
even my memory failed me in this effort. All this was a blank. The few
imperfect and shadowy facts which I could recall seemed to me wholly
unimportant in establishing the truth of what I sought to believe; and
I shuddered with the horrible doubt that she might be innocent! If she
were indeed innocent, what am I?
With the desperate earnestness of the cast-away, who strives, in
mid-ocean, for the only plank which can possibly retard his doom, did I
toil to re-establish in my mind that conviction of her guilt which the
demon in my soul had made so certain by his assurances before. Alas! I
had not only lost the wife of my bosom, but its fiend also. Vainly now
did I seek to summon him back. Vainly did I call upon him to renew his
arguments and proofs! He had fled--fled for ever; and I could fancy
that I heard him afar off, chuckling with hellish laughter, over the
triumphant results of his malice.
I know not how long I hung over that silent speaker. Her pale, placid
countenance--her bloodless lips, that still seemed to smile upon me as
they had ever done before;--and that eye of speaking beauty--only half
closed--oh! what conclusive assurances did they seem to give of that
innocence which it now seemed the worst impiety to doubt! I would have
given worlds--alas! how impotent is such a speech! Death sets his seal
upon hope, and love, and endeavor; and the regrets of that childish
precipitation which has obeyed the laws of passion only, are only so
many mocking memorials of the blind heart, that jaundiced the face of
truth, and distorted all the aspects of the beautiful.
Once more I laughed--a vain hysterical laugh--the expression of my
conviction that I was self-doomed and desperate; and, writhing beside
the inanimate angel whom I then would have recalled though with all her
guilt--assuming all of it to have been true--to the arms that wantonly
cast her off for ever--I grasped the cold senseless limbs in my embrace,
and placed the drooping head once more upon the bosom where it could not
long remain! What a weight! The pulsation in my own heart ceased, and,
with a shudder, I released the chilling form from my grasp, and found
strength barely to compose the limbs once more in the bed beside me.
I pass over the usual and unnecessary details. There was a show of
inquiry of course; but the one word of the learned young gentleman in
black silenced any further examination. It was shown to the inquest by
Mrs. Porterfield that my wife had been sick--that she was suddenly
found dead. The physician furnished the next necessary fact. I was not
examined at all, I stood by in silence. I heard the verdict--“Death by
apoplexy”---with a smile. I was not unwilling to state the truth. Had I
been called upon I should have done so. At first I was about to proffer
my testimony, but a single sentence from the lips of Kingsley, when I
declared to him my purpose, silenced me:--
“If you are not afraid to declare your own act, you should at least
scruple to denounce her shame! She died your wife. Let that seal your
tongue. The shame would be shared between you! You could only justify
your crime by exposing hers!”
With the stern strength of desperation I stood above the grave, and
heard the heavy clod ring hollowly upon the coffin. And there closed
two lives in one. My hopes were buried there as effectually as her
unconscious form.
Life is not breath simply. Not the capacity to move, and breathe, to
act, eat, drink, sleep, and say, “Thank God! we have ate, drank, and
slept!” The life of humanity consists in hope, love, and labor. In the
capacity to desire, to affect, ant to struggle. I had now nothing for
which I could hope, nothing to love, nothing to struggle for!
Yes! life has something more:--endurance! This is a part of the
allotment. The conviction of this renewed my strength But it was the
strength of desolation I I had taken courage from despair!