Then the thought of going home crossed his mind. But he set his teeth firmly, and murmured audibly,
“Oh! to be defied, and charged with being a tyrant? And has it come to this so soon?”
The more Huntley brooded, in this unhappy mood, over his wife’s words and conduct, the denser and more widely refracting became the medium through which he saw. His pride continually excited his mind, and threw a thick veil over all the gentler emotions of his heart. He was beside himself.
At one o’clock he found himself standing in front of the United States Hotel, his mind made up to desert the affectionate young creature, who, in a moment of thoughtlessness, had set her will in opposition to his,—to leave the city, under an assumed name, by the earliest lines, and go, he knew not nor cared not where. Blind passion was his prompter and guide. In this feverish state he entered the hotel and called for a bed.
Eleven, twelve, one o’clock came, and found Mrs. Huntley in a state of wild agitation. Edward had not yet returned. The silence and evident distress of Mrs. Carlisle struck down the heart of Esther, almost as much as her own fears. The too vivid recollection of one terrible event in her own life completely unbalanced the aunt’s mind, and took away all power to sustain her niece.
“I will go in search of him, aunt!” exclaimed Esther, as the clock struck two. “He cannot leave the city before daylight. I will find him, and confess all my folly before it is too late.”
“But where will you go, my child?” Mrs. Carlisle asked in a sad voice.
“Where—where shall I go?” eagerly inquired Mrs. Huntley.
“It is midnight, Esther. You cannot find him now.”
“But I must see him before he leaves me, perhaps for ever! It will kill me. If I wait until morning, it will be too late.”
Mrs. Carlisle bent her eyes to the floor, and for the space of more than a minute remained in deep thought. She then said, in a calm voice,
“Esther, I cannot believe that Edward will desert you on so slight a provocation. For a few hours his mind may be blinded with passion, and be swayed by false judgment. But morning will find him cooler and more reflective. He will see his error, and repent of any mad act he may have contemplated. Still, to guard against the worst of consequences, should this salutary change not take place, I think it would be best for you to go early to the boat, and by meeting him prevent a step that may cost you each a life of wretchedness.”
“I will do it! He shall not go away! Oh! if I could once more meet him! all would be reconciled on the instant.”
Confident in her own mind that Edward had determined to go away from the city in the morning, and fully resolved upon what she would do, Esther threw herself upon the bed, and in snatches of uneasy slumber passed the remainder of that dreadful night. At day-dawn she was up, and making preparations for going to the boat to intercept her husband.
“Be self-possessed, my dear niece,” urged Mrs. Carlisle, in a voice that trembled so she could scarcely speak.
Esther tried to reply, but, though her lips and tongue moved, there was no utterance. Turning away, just as the sun threw his first rays into her chamber window, she went down stairs, and her aunt, no longer able to restrain herself, covered her face with her hands and wept.
On the day before, Esther had laid her gloves on one of the parlour mantels, and she went in to get them. It was so dark that she could not see, and she, therefore, opened a window and pushed back one of the shutters. As she did so, a sound between a sigh and a groan fell upon her ear, and caused her to turn with a start. There lay her husband, asleep upon one of the sofas! A wild cry that she could not restrain burst from her lips, and, springing toward him, she threw her arms about his neck as he arose, startled, from his recumbent position.
An hour’s reflection, alone in the room he had taken at the hotel, satisfied Huntley that he was wrong in not going home. By the aid of his night key he entered, silently, at the very time his wife resolved to seek him in the morning, and, throwing himself upon a sofa in the parlour to think what he should next do, thought himself to sleep.
All was, of course, reconciled. With tears of joy and contrition Esther acknowledged the error she had committed. Huntley had his own share of blame in his impatient temper, and this he was also ready to confess He did not, however, own that he had thought of deserting his wife on such slight provocation, nor did she confess the fearful suspicion that had crossed her mind.
It was their first and last quarrel.
GUESS WHO IT IS!
“IT will be great deal better for us, Lizzy. America is a country where all things are in full and plenty; but here we are ground down to the earth and half-starved by the rich and great in order that they may become richer and greater. I isn’t so there, Lizzy. Don’t you remember what John McClure wrote home, six months after he crossed the ocean?”
“Yes, I remember all that, Thomas; but John McClure was never a very truthful body at home and I’ve always thought that if we knew every thing, we would find that he wrote with his magnifying glasses on. John, you know, was very apt to see things through magnifying glasses.”
“But the testimony doesn’t come alone from John. We hear it every day and from every quarter, that America is a perfect paradise for the poor, compared to England.”
“I don’t know how that can be, Thomas. They say that it is full of wild beast poisonous serpents, and savage Indians, and that the people are in constant fear of their lives. I’m sure England is a better place than that, even if we do have to work hard and get but little for it.”
“All that used to be, Lizzy,” replied Thomas. “But they’ve killed the wild beasts and serpents, and tamed the savage Indians. And there are great cities there, the same as in England.”
But Lizzy could not be convinced. From her earliest childhood she had never had but one idea of America, and that was as a great wilderness filled with Indians and wild beasts. Of the former, she had heard tales that made her blood curdle in her veins. It was in vain, therefore, for Thomas Ward to argue with his wife about going to America. She was not to be convinced that a waste, howling wilderness was at all comparable with happy old England, even if the poor were “ground down.”
As a dozen previous discussions on the subject had ended, so ended this. Thomas Ward was of the same mind as before, and so was his wife. The one wished to go, and the other to stay.
