“But he may be the father of innocent children.”
“He will marry. He will not throw a chance away. It makes my head dizzy, and my heart sick. Bella, now I can understand two enemies meeting alone in some solitary place, and one killing the other in a moment of rage; for when this scoundrel insulted me I remembered his anonymous letter, and all his relentless malice. Bella, I could have raised my gun and shot him like a weasel.”
Lady Bassett screamed faintly, and flung her arms round his neck. “Oh, Charles, pray to God against such thoughts. You shall never go near that man again. Don't think of our one disappointment: think of all the blessings we enjoy. Never mind that wretched man's hate. Think of your wife's love. Have I not more power to make you happy than he has to afflict you, my adored?” These sweet words were accompanied by a wife's divine caresses; with the honey of her voice, and the liquid sunshine of her loving eyes. Sir Charles slept peacefully that night, and forgot his one grief and his one enemy for a time.
Not so Lady Bassett. She lay awake all night and thought deeply of Richard Bassett and “his unrelenting, impenitent malice.” Women of her fine fiber, when they think long and earnestly on one thing, have often divinations. The dark future seems to be lit a moment at a time by flashes of lightning, and they discern the indistinct form of events to come, And so it was with Lady Bassett: in the stilly night a terror of the future and of Richard Bassett crept over her--a terror disproportioned to his past acts and apparent power. Perhaps she was oppressed by having an enemy--she, who was born to be loved. At all events, she was full of feminine divinations and forebodings, and saw, by flashes, many a poisoned arrow fly from that quiver and strike the beloved breast. It had already discharged one that had parted them for a time, and nearly killed Sir Charles.
Daylight cleared away much of this dark terror, but left a sober dread and a strange resolution. This timid creature, stimulated by love, determined to watch the foe, and defend her husband with all her little power. All manner of devices passed through her head, but were rejected, because, if Love said “Do wonders,” Timidity said “Do nothing that you have not seen other wives do.” So she remained, scheming, and longing, and fearing, and passive, all day. But the next day she conceived a vague idea, and, all in a heat, rang for her maid. While the maid was coming she fell to blushing at her own boldness, and, just as the maid opened the door, her thermometer fell so low that--she sent her upstairs for a piece of work. Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!