One little matter only dwelt on my mind disagreeably, in spite of my philosophy. Did Eustace still secretly love Mrs. Beauly? or had I extinguished that passion in him? To what order of beauty did this lady belong? Were we by any chance, the least in the world like one another?
The window of my room looked to the east. I drew up the blind, and saw the sun rising grandly in a clear sky. The temptation to go out and breathe the fresh morning air was irresistible. I put on my hat and shawl, and took the Report of the Trial under my arm. The bolts of the back door were easily drawn. In another minute I was out in Benjamin’s pretty little garden.
Composed and strengthened by the inviting solitude and the delicious air, I found courage enough to face the serious question that now confronted me--the question of the future.
I had read the Trial. I had vowed to devote my life to the sacred object of vindicating my husband’s innocence. A solitary, defenseless woman, I stood pledged to myself to carry that desperate resolution through to an end. How was I to begin?
The bold way of beginning was surely the wise way in such a position as mine. I had good reasons (founded, as I have already mentioned, on the important part played by this witness at the Trial) for believing that the fittest person to advise and assist me was--Miserrimus Dexter. He might disappoint the expectations that I had fixed on him, or he might refuse to help me, or (like my uncle Starkweather) he might think I had taken leave of my senses. All these events were possible. Nevertheless, I held to my resolution to try the experiment. If he were in the land of the living, I decided that my first step at starting should take me to the deformed man with the strange name.
Supposing he received me, sympathized with me, understood me? What would he say? The nurse, in her evidence, had reported him as speaking in an off-hand manner. He would say, in all probability, “What do you mean to do? And how can I help you to do it?”
Had I answers ready if those two plain questions were put to me? Yes! if I dared own to any human creature what was at that very moment secretly fermenting in my mind. Yes! if I could confide to a stranger a suspicion roused in me by the Trial which I have been thus far afraid to mention even in these pages!