"Well, Doctor Danvers, it seems you think it your duty to speak to me,
of course, respecting my conduct and my spiritual state. I shall save you
the pain and trouble of opening the subject; I shall state the case for
you in two words," said Marston, almost fiercely. "I have put away my
wife without just cause, and am living in sin with another woman. Come,
what have you to say on this theme? Speak out. Deal with me as roughly as
you will, I will hear it, and answer you again." "Alas, Mr. Marston! And do not these things trouble you?" exclaimed Dr.
Danvers, earnestly. "Do they not weigh heavy upon your conscience? Ah,
sir, do you not remember that, slowly and surely, you are drawing towards
the hour of death, and the Day of Judgment?" "The hour or death! Yes, I know it is coming, and I await it with
indifference. But, for the Day of Judgment, with its books and trumpets! My dear doctor, pray don't expect to frighten me with that." Marston spoke with an angry scorn, which had the effect of interrupting
the conversation for some moments. They rode on, side by side, for a long time, without speaking. At length,
however, Marston unexpectedly broke the silence--

"Doctor Danvers," said he, "you asked me some time ago if I feared the
hour of death, and the Day of Judgment. I answered you truly, I do not
fear them; nay death, I think, I could meet with a happier and a quieter
heart than any other chance that can befall me; but there are other
fears; fears that do trouble me much." Doctor Danvers looked inquiringly at him; but neither spoke for a time. "You have not seen the catastrophe of the tragedy yet," said Marston,
with a stern, stony look, made more horrible by a forced smile and
something like a shudder. "I wish I could tell you--you, Doctor
Danvers--for you are honorable and gentle-hearted. I wish I durst tell
you what I fear; the only, only thing I really do fear. No mortal knows
it but myself, and I see it coming upon me with slow, but unconquerable
power. Oh, God--dreadful Spirit--spare me!" Again they were silent, and again Marston resumed--

"Doctor Danvers, don't mistake me," he said, turning sharply, and fixing
his eyes with a strange expression upon his companion. "I dread nothing
human; I fear neither death, nor disgrace, nor eternity; I have no
secrets to keep--no exposures to apprehend; but I dread--I dread--"

He paused, scowled darkly, as if stung with pain, turned away, muttering
to himself, and gradually became much excited. "I can't tell you now, sir, and I won't," he said, abruptly and fiercely,
and with a countenance darkened with a wild and appalling rage that was
wholly unaccountable. "I see you searching me with your eyes. Suspect
what you will, sir, you shan't inveigle me into admissions. Aye,
pry--whisper--stare--question, conjecture, sir--I suppose I must endure
the world's impertinence, but d----n me if I gratify it." It would not be easy to describe Dr. Danvers' astonishment at this
unaccountable explosion of fury. He was resolved, however, to bear his
companion's violence with temper. They rode on slowly for fully ten minutes in utter silence, except that
Marston occasionally muttered to himself, as it seemed, in excited
abstraction. Danvers had at first felt naturally offended at the violent
and insulting tone in which he had been so unexpectedly and unprovokedly
addressed; but this feeling of irritation was but transient, and some
fearful suspicions as to Marston's sanity flitted through his mind. In a
calmer and more dogged tone, his companion now addressed him:--

"There is little profit you see, doctor, in worrying me about your
religion," said Marston. "it is but sowing the wind, and reaping the
whirlwind; and, to say the truth, the longer you pursue it, the less I am
in the mood to listen. If ever you are cursed and persecuted as I have
been, you will understand how little tolerant of gratuitous vexations and
contradictions a man may become. We have squabbled over religion long
enough, and each holds his own faith still. Continue to sun yourself in
your happy delusions, and leave me untroubled to tread the way of my own
dark and cheerless destiny." Thus saying, he made a sullen gesture of farewell, and spurring his
horse, crossed the broken fence at the roadside, and so, at a listless
pace, through gaps and by farm-roads, penetrated towards his melancholy
and guilty home. Two years had now passed since the decisive event which had forever
separated Marston from her who had loved him so devotedly and so fatally;
two years to him of disappointment, abasement, and secret rage; two years
to her of gentle and heart-broken submission to the chastening hand of
heaven. At the end of this time she died. Marston read the letter that
announced the event with a stern look, and silently, but the shock he
felt was terrific. No man is so self-abandoned to despair and
degradation, that at some casual moment thoughts of amendment--some
gleams of hope, however faint and transient, from the distant
future--will not visit him. With Marston, those thoughts had somehow ever
been associated with vague ideas of a reconciliation with the being whom
he had forsaken--good and pure, and looking at her from the darkness and
distance of his own fallen state, almost angelic as she seemed. But she
was now dead; he could make her no atonement; she could never smile
forgiveness upon him. This long-familiar image--the last that had
reflected for him one ray of the lost peace and love of happier
times--had vanished, and henceforward there was before him nothing but
storm and fear. Marston's embarrassed fortunes made it to him an object to resume the
portion of his income heretofore devoted to the separate maintenance of
his wife and daughter. In order to effect this it became, of course,
necessary to recall his daughter, Rhoda, and fix her residence once more
at Gray Forest. No more dreadful penalty could have been inflicted upon
the poor girl--no more agonizing ordeal than that she was thus doomed to
undergo. She had idolized her mother, and now adored her memory. She knew
that Mademoiselle de Barras had betrayed and indirectly murdered the
parent she had so devotedly loved; she knew that that woman had been the
curse, the fate of her family, and she regarded her naturally with
feelings of mingled terror and abhorrence, the intensity of which was
indescribable. The few scattered friends and relatives, whose sympathies had been moved
by the melancholy fate of poor Mrs. Marston, were unanimously agreed that
the intended removal of the young and innocent daughter to the polluted
mansion of sin and shame, was too intolerably revolting to be permitted. But each of these virtuous individuals unhappily thought it the duty of
the others to interpose; and with a running commentary of wonder and
reprobation, and much virtuous criticism, events were suffered
uninterruptedly to take their sinister and melancholy course.