No wonder she is
alarmed at the mention of the words, for she read the horror produced in
me when she held up what she called the pretty picture in my face. But,
thank God! thank God!"----
And he fell for a moment into meditation.
"For what?" said I, as my wonder increased.
"That her mother, who is within a week of her confinement, knows nothing
of this mystery."
I was silent. I might have said, "What mystery?" but I would only have
irritated him.
"Rymer!"
I started. I was looking into the fire, with my ear altogether his, yet
the strange mention of my name startled me.
"What could infamy--infamy, with just a beam of consciousness to tell
it was infamy, and no more but that beam--think and feel to be
worshipped by purity and love? I have shrunk from the embrace of that
woman with a recoil equal to that produced by the enfolding of a snake."
"Though she knows not, and may never know, anything of this affair which
has taken such a hold of you?" said I, rather as a speaking automaton,
forced to vocabulate.
"The very reason why I recoil and shudder."
I had made a mistake--I would not risk another. "The man has got into
the enfolding arms of mania," I thought, "and I must be chary."
"Will you keep in your remembrance," he continued, "the words uttered by
Edith, and how she came by them? Will you?"
"Yes.
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