And now, my dearest wife, let me approach my own affairs. As I have come out unscorched from the last fiery furnace which has been heated for me by my enemies seven times hot, so shall I escape from that other fire with which the poor man who has gone from us endeavoured to envelop me. If they have made you believe that I have any wife but yourself they have made you believe a falsehood. You, and you only, have my hand. You, and you only, have my heart. I know well what attempts are being made to suborn false evidence in my old country, and how the follies of my youth are being pressed against me—how anxious are proud Englishmen that the poor Bohemian should be robbed of the beauty and wit and wealth which he had won for himself. But the Lord fights on my side, and I shall certainly prevail.
If you will come back to me all shall be forgiven. My heart is as it ever was. Come, and let us leave this cold and ungenial country and go to the sunny south; to the islands of the blest—
Mr. Emilius during his married life had not quite fathomed the depths of his wife’s character, though, no doubt, he had caught some points of it with sufficient accuracy.
—where we may forget these bloodstained sorrows, and mutually forgive each other. What happiness, what joys can you expect in your present mode of life? Even your income—which in truth is my income—you cannot obtain, because the tenants will not dare to pay it in opposition to my legal claims. But of what use is gold? What can purple do for us, and fine linen, and rich jewels, without love and a contented heart? Come, dearest, once more to your own one, who will never remember aught of the sad rupture which enemies have made, and we will hurry to the setting sun, and recline on mossy banks, and give up our souls to Elysium.
As Lizzie read this she uttered an exclamation of disgust. Did the man after all know so little of her as to suppose that she, with all her experiences, did not know how to keep her own life and her own pocket separate from her romance? She despised him for this, almost as much as she respected him for the murder.
If you will only say that you will see me, I will be at your feet in a moment. Till the solemnity with which the late tragical event must have filled you shall have left you leisure to think of all this, I will not force myself into your presence, or seek to secure by law rights which will be much dearer to me if they are accorded by your own sweet goodwill. And in the meantime, I will agree that the income shall be drawn, provided that it be equally divided between us. I have been sorely straitened in my circumstances by these last events. My congregation is of course dispersed. Though my innocence has been triumphantly displayed, my name has been tarnished. It is with difficulty that I find a spot where to lay my weary head. I am ahungered and athirst;—and my very garments are parting from me in my need. Can it be that you willingly doom me to such misery because of my love for you? Had I been less true to you, it might have been otherwise.
Let me have an answer at once, and I will instantly take steps about the money if you will agree.
When Lizzie had read the letter twice through she resolved that she would show it to her friend. “I know it will reopen the floodgates of your grief,” she said; “but unless you see it, how can I ask from you the advice which is so necessary to me?” But Mrs. Bonteen was a woman sincere at any rate in this—that the loss of her husband had been to her so crushing a calamity that there could be no reopening of the floodgates. The grief that cannot bear allusion to its causes has generally something of affectation in its composition. The floodgates with this widowed one had never yet been for a moment closed. It was not that her tears were ever flowing, but that her heart had never yet for a moment ceased to feel that its misery was incapable of alleviation. No utterances concerning her husband could make her more wretched than she was. She took the letter and read it through. “I daresay he is a bad man,” said Mrs. Bonteen.
“Indeed he is,” said the bad man’s wife.
“But he was not guilty of this crime.”
“Oh, no;—I am sure of that,” said Lady Eustace, feeling certain at the same time that Mr. Bonteen had fallen by her husband’s hands.
“And therefore I am glad they have given him up. There can be no doubt now about it.”
“Everybody knows who did it now,” said Lady Eustace.
“Infamous ruffian! My poor dear lost one always knew what he was. Oh that such a creature should have been allowed to come among us.”
“Of course he’ll be hung, Mrs. Bonteen.”
“Hung! I should think so! What other end would be fit for him? Oh, yes; they must hang him. But it makes one think that the world is too hard a place to live in, when such a one as he can cause so great a ruin.”
“It has been very terrible.”
“Think what the country has lost! They tell me that the Duke of Omnium is to take my husband’s place; but the Duke cannot do what he did. Everyone knows that for real work there was no one like him. Nothing was more certain than that he would have been Prime Minister—oh, very soon. They ought to pinch him to death
