University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

We pass, with hurried progress, over the proceedings of
that night. The reader will please believe that Col. Sharpe
was, as usual, happy in his dialogue, and fluent in his
humour. Indeed, by that strange contradiction in the work
of destiny, which sometimes so arranges it that death does
the work of tragedy in the very midst of the marriage
merriment, the spirits of the doomed man were never more
elastic and excitable than on that very night. He and
Barnabas kept his host, till a late hour, from his couch;
the sounds of their laughter penetrated the upper apartments,
and smote wofully upon the ears of the unhappy
wife, to whom all sounds, at that moment, came laden with
the weight of wo. One monotonous voice rang through
her senses and the house, as in the case of Macbeth, and
cried “sleep no more!” Such, at least, was the effect of
the cry upon her. Precious little had been her sleep, in
that house, from the moment that bad man entered it.
Was she ever to sleep again? She, herself, believed
not.

The guests at length retired to their chamber and Beauchampe
sought his. At his approach, his wife rose from
her knees. Poor, striving, struggling, hopeless heart—she
had been striving to beat down thought and to wrestle with
prayer. But thought mingled with prayer, and obtained
the mastery. Such thoughts too! Such thoughts of the
terrible necessity before her! Oh! how criminal was the
selfish denial of that man. Life had become sweet and
precious. Her husband had grown dear to her in proportions
he convinced her that she was dear to him. Permitted
to remain in their obscurity, life might still be
retained and would continue, with length of days, to
become more and more precious. But the destroyer was
there, unwilling to spare—unwilling to forego the ravages
he had begun. Not to tell her husband the whole truth—
to listen to the criminal any longer without denouncing
him,—would not only be to encourage him in his crime

but to partake of it. If he remained another day, she was
bound by duty, and sworn before the altar, to declare the
truth; and the truth, once told, was only another name for
utter desolation—blood upon the hands, death upon the
soul! With such thoughts, prayer was not possible. But
she had striven in prayer, and that was something. Nay,
it was something gained, even to think, in the position of
humility—upon her knees.

She rose, when she heard her husband approach—took
a book, and seating herself beside the toilet, prepared to
read. She composed her countenance, with a very decided
effort of will, so as to disperse some of the storm-clouds
which had been hanging over it. Her policy was, at present,
not to alarm her husband's suspicions, if possible, in
relation to her guests. It might be that Sharpe would
grow wiser with the passage of the night. Sleep, and
quiet, and reflection, might work beneficial results; and if
he would only depart with the morning, she trusted to
time and to her own influence over Beauchampe, to break
off the intimacy between the parties without revealing
the fatal truth.

“What! not abed, Anna?” said Beauchampe. “It is
late do you know the hour? It is nigh one!”

“Indeed, but I am not sleepy.”

“I am; what with riding and rambling with Barnabas
I am completely knocked up. Besides, he is such a dull
fellow. Now Sharpe has wit, humour, and other resources,
which make a man forgetful of the journey and the progress
of time.”

“Has Col. Sharpe said any thing about going?” demanded
the wife with some abruptness.

“Yes—”

“Ah!” with some eagerness—“when does he go?”

“At the close of the week. He is disposed to see something
of the neighbourhood.”

She drew a long breath, scarcely suppressing the deep
sigh which struggled for utterance; and once more fixed
her eyes on the book. It need not be said that she read
nothing.

“Come to bed, dearest,” said Beauchampe tenderly.
“You hurt your eyes by night reading. They have been
looking red all day.”

She promised him, and, overcome with fatigue, the

husband soon slept, but the wife did not rise. For more
than two hours she sat, the book still in her hands; but
her eyes were unconscious of its pages, her thoughts were
not in that volume. She thought only of that coming morrow,
and the duties and dangers which its coming would
involve. She was seeking to steel her mind with the
proper resolution, and this was no easy effort. Imagine
the task before her—and the difficulty in the way of acquiring
the proper hardihood will easily be understood.
Imagine yourself preparing for the doom which is to follow
in twelve hours; and conjecture, if you can, the sort
of meditations which will come to you in that dreary but
short interval of time. Suppose yourself in health, too—
young, beautiful, highly endowed, intensely ambitious,
with the prospect—if those twelve hours can be passed in
safety—of love, long life, happiness, and possibly, “troops
of friends” all before you, smiling, beckoning, entreating
in the sunny distance! Imagine all this in the case of that
proud, noble-hearted, most lovely, highly intellectual, but
wo-environed woman, and you will not wonder that she
did not sleep. Still less will it be your wonder that she
could not pray. Life and hope were too strong for sufficient
humility. The spirit and the energy of her heart
was not yet sufficiently subdued.

Dreary was the dismal watch she kept—still in the one
position. At length her husband moved and murmured in
his sleep. In his sleep he called her name, and coupled
with it an endearing epithet. Then the tide flowed. The
proper chords of human feeling were stricken in her heart.
The rock gushed. It was stubborn no longer. But the
waters were bitter, though the relief was sweet. Bitter
were the tears she wept, but they were tears, human tears;
and like the big drops that relieve the heat of the sky and
disperse its unbreathing vapours, they took some of the
mountain pressure from her heart, and left her free to
breathe, and hope, and pray.

She rose and stepped lightly beside the bed where Beauchampe
slept. She hung over him. Still he murmured
in his sleep. Still he spoke her name, and still his words
were those of tenderness and love. Mentally she prayed
above him, while the big drops fell from her eyes upon
the pillow. One sentence alone became audible in her
prayer—that sentence of agonizing apostrophe, spoken by

the Saviour in his prescience of the dreadful hour of trial
which was to come:—“If thou be willing, Father, let this
cup pass by me!”

She had no other prayer, and in this vain and useless
repetition of the undirected thoughts, she passed a sad and
comfortless night. But she had been gaining strength. A
stern and unfaltering spirit—it matters not whence derived
—came to her aid, and with the return of sunrise she
arose, with a solemn composure of soul, prepared, however
gloomily, to go forward in her terrible duties.