Two months passed by, and still Ralph Murray treated his wife with the same silent indifference. He never sought an interview nor an explanation; it seemed as if the death of their child, instead of softening him, had, to his mind, broken off all connection between them. Edda grieved incessantly, until at last her health became seriously affected. When the traveling season came, the physicians who had been called in to heal the poor breaking heart, recommended an instant departure for the sea-side. Fine apartments were procured, every elegance, every luxury surrounded her; but she looked more wretched, more unhappy every day.
She knew that their beautiful house belonged to another—every thing had been sold; that she no longer had a home with her husband; and the consciousness that she was a childless, lonely wife, became daily more insupportable. Poor girl! life seemed very dark and hopeless to her. Her trouble had lifted her spirit on almost a life time; all the childish, capricious waywardness of girlhood had disappeared; sorrow had done the work of years; and she was now a woman—but a suffering, loving woman, ready to make any sacrifice, perform any duty, to atone for the past. Her uncle and aunt caressed her, and sympathized with her, while they incessantly spoke of her husband with words of reproach and blame; and when she would check them, saying the greater part of the blame rested on herself, they would think her still more lovely and amiable, and lift their hands in surprise. How reproaching to her conscience was their sympathy! and she grew more and more despairing and hopeless.
At midnight she would pace her room, wringing her little hands with remorse for the past. Her husband’s stern face would rise before her, blended with the beautiful, loving expression his countenance had worn during the delicious season of courtship. Then she would recall every noble, honorable trait in his character, and remember her own willful conduct. All, all was over, and henceforth she would have to live without him. This seemed impossible; and the poor girl would call on Heaven, agonizingly, to take her away from life or give her back her husband.
All her friends upheld her and blamed Mr. Murray. They called him stern, cold and heartless. The fashionable world thought her a lucky woman in possessing a rich old uncle to take care of her. Her quarrel with her cross husband had taken place in the very nick of time, they said; now she need not suffer from his mischances; when she would so willingly have borne the very heaviest burden poverty could impose. But what could she do but suffer idly?