THE WIFE AWAITING HER HUSBAND.
While the wretched girl wandered distractedly on her way, goaded by
the pangs of shame and remorse, the still more wretched Cecil, calm
in his concentrated despair, was walking along the river side,
pursued by the Eumenides, eager to reach a quiet spot where he might
end his blighted existence.
The snow fell in large flakes that cold January night; and as each
flake sank gently on the quiet bosom of the river, and silently
disappeared in it, leaving no other trace than the smallest possible
circle, it seemed to him an image of his own disappearance from this
stormy, sunless world. In the deep, quiet bosom of Eternity was he
about to vanish: from this scene of turmoil and disgrace, he was to
drop into the swiftly flowing river of Eternity, in it to be absorbed
like to those flakes of snow. There was comfort in that thought.
He walked on, thinking of what his wife and child would do when left
by him. He thought sadly of Blanche's misery; for he knew the depth
of her affection for him--for him who had so ill repaid it, who had
brought such shame and sorrow on her head; but he endeavoured to
console himself with the reflection that her father would take care
of her, and that, perhaps, the best thing that could occur to her was
to become a widow.
In those lucid moments which precede the last solemn act, he reviewed
his conduct with melancholy clearness; and, undimmed by sophisms, his
conduct appeared to him in its true light.
He grew calmer as he walked. He thought of his child with something
like satisfaction, when he reflected that she was too young to know
anything of her father's disgrace; and that, before she grew old
enough even to prattle about him, all would be forgotten.
Then he thought of Hester, in her miserable finery, and followed her
in imagination through the rapid stages of her inevitable career.
And he thought of Frank, then so prosperous, but soon, as he foresaw,
to be dragged down from his prosperity to the destitution which must
quickly follow; and he saw him dying in an hospital.
And the thought of death was sweeter to him, as he walked musingly on.
A light was dimly shining in Blanche's bedroom, and she was seated by
the window looking out into the night, awaiting the return of him who
was to return no more. Her child was sleeping calmly; no hint of the
anguish which ploughed the hearts of its parents troubled its quiet
breathing.
The clock struck twelve.
A heavy sigh issued from the watcher as the strokes fell upon her
ear, and she rose to snuff the enormous wick of the neglected candle.
She then resumed her seat at the window.
"When will he come?" she asked herself, sadly.
She feared to meet him--feared to look upon his face, after what had
passed; feared lest he, upon whose brow she had been wont to see the
imperial stamp of genius--in whose eye the lustre of a glorious mind,
on whose lips the smile of unutterable tenderness,--there should now
be legible the stamp of infamy, the dull look of shame, the cynical
sneer of recklessness.
She feared to meet him, yet she could not repress her impatience to
see him: a vague dread that he might not return, shifted to and fro
before her mind, and kept her anxiously watching.
The clock struck one.
Her candle was guttering in the socket, and she lighted another. She
bent over the cradle of her sleeping infant with a searching look of
love; and seeing that it slept peacefully, she again resumed her seat
at the window.
The snow had ceased to fall. The bright stars were lustrous in the
deep, dark, moonless heavens, in which they seemed suspended. The
ground was white with the untrodden snow, as also were the tops of
the houses, and the branches of the trees. Not a breath of wind
stirred. All was silent without, hushed in the repose of night. Not
a footstep was heard; not even the distant barking of some watchful
dog.
Cold, cheerless, desolate as a leafless tree, was the night out into
which the watcher looked, awaiting her husband's return; but he came
not, would not come!
The clock struck two.
The watcher stirred the fire, and drew the shawl closer around her.
She was cold; but it was not the cold of that winter night which
numbed her limbs, it was the cold icy fear which momently assumed a
more definite and consistent shape.
She no longer asked: "when will he come?"
Her teeth chattered as the thought that he would never come, grew
more and more like a certainty.
There was a shroud upon the earth: a pure, white, stainless shroud,
prepared for one who was yet young, but who had lived too long.
To her widowed eyes this garment of snow, which nature wore, became a
terrible symbol, and the stars seemed to look down upon her in
infinite compassion.
He came not; could not come. The silent river had opened to receive
him, and was now flowing swiftly and silently over his lifeless
corpse.
The clock struck three.
A cry of agony broke from the watcher as those three small strokes
with horrible distinctness fell upon her ear and seemed to utter,--
"He is dead!"
But she remained at her window looking; out into the night. For two
hours longer did she sit there, and then dropped into a feverish
sleep, visited by happy, though broken, dreams.
She dreamed that she had dreamed her husband had committed a forgery,
and that she awoke to find it but a dream: how great her joy, as she
clasped him by the hand and told him all! and how his tender eyes
bent down upon her as he said,--
"What! think that of _me_!"
And she awoke--awoke to find herself seated at the window--the dull
winter morning struggling into obscure day--the snow heaped up on the
window ledge, and covering everything without--and the crushing
reality was once more threatening her!