s bosom, my friend
listened to an explanation that was destined to enlighten more than
one person. From his lips I learned that he had become entangled in
certain financial difficulties that involved his honor as a gentleman;
he had used money to enable him to embark in a speculation which, if
successful, would have afforded him the means of marrying in
accordance with the dictates of his heart; but, like the majority of
nefarious schemes, it failed signally, and fear of detection, and the
absolute necessity of obtaining a large amount of money, had goaded
him to the desperate step of sacrificing his happiness and offering
his hand to me. He strained her to his breast, kissed her repeatedly,
and impiously called God to witness that he loved her, and her only,
truly, tenderly; that never for an instant had his affection wandered
from her, 'his beautiful, idolized darling.' He bitterly denounced his
folly, cursed the hour that had thrown me and my fortune in his path,
and swore that he utterly loathed and despised the silly child whose
wealth alone had made her his dupe; and, as he flatteringly expressed
it, his 'hated and intolerable incubus.' He had intended to spare her
and himself the agony of this hour,--had determined to remain always
in Europe, where he could escape the mocking contrast of his bride and
his beloved. With indescribable scorn, and a wonderful fertility of
derisive epithets, he held me up, as on the point of a scalpel, and
proved the utter impossibility of his having been influenced by any
other than the most grossly mercenary motives; while, between the
bursts of invective against me, he lavished upon her a hundred fond,
tender, passionate phrases of endearment that had never been applied
to me. Pressing one hand on her head, he raised the other, and called
Heaven to witness, that, although the world might regard him as the
husband of 'that sallow, gray-eyed, silly girl,' whose gold alone had
bought his name, the only woman he could ever love was his own
beautiful Edith; and, should death come to his aid and free him from
the detested bond that linked him to the heiress, he swore he would
not lose a day in claiming the lovely wife that fate had denied him.
All this, and much more, which I have not now the requisite patience
to recapitulate, fell on my ears, startling me more painfully than the
trumpet-blast of the Last Judgment will ever do. Standing there, in my
costly bridal robe, I listened to the