Valeria had, on recovering her senses, crept to the body of her husband. She held the slumbering babe in one arm, while with the other she raised the head of the dead man and reclined it on her bosom. She knew he was dead—that he would never wake again; she saw the life-blood oozing from his heart; but her devotion was superior to the evidence of her senses; her constancy to the sword of death. She chafed his temples; she fondly smoothed his hair; she kissed again and again his icy lips; and she fervently prayed for the salvation of the dead. A pale, unearthly glow was thrown over the group by occasional glances of the moon-beams; and everything conspired to strike me with awe and remorse. But I was not susceptible of the better feelings of humanity. I possessed no refined sensibility. Whatever I felt was common to the lowest of God’s creation.
“Why,” I cried in a hollow voice, “why must this be? Why must my peace be blasted by such scenes as these? I murdered him—is it not enough that he should die? I seek nothing from him after death. Why—why do you persecute me, Omnipotent God!”
“See!” shrieked a piercing voice, “see what you have done!”
For a moment I could not answer. The anguish of the accuser deprived me of speech. But at length I stammered out,
“It is a calumny!” said Valeria, with flashing eyes, seeming for an instant to forget her grief in indignation at the charge, “he honored you!”
I was silent. The last words were said in a voice of such exquisite anguish that they went to my heart—stony as it was. If ever a pang of remorse vibrated in my soul it was then. Valeria regarded me with an expression more of sorrow than of anger. She clasped the infant to her arms as if it were now her only solace; and burst into a flood of tears.
“Father,” she murmured, when her agitation had in some measure subsided; “the hand of death is upon me. God in his infinite goodness has given you the means of atonement for your crimes. A few hours and I shall be no more. Take my child—you are rich—rich in worldly things—take him, and have him brought up as he should be. I rely on you—I beseech you—I command you! You cannot be so utterly callous to humanity, as to refuse; let him not die in this miserable place. O, be kind to him—be more merciful to him than you were to my poor, dead husband!”