Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

I went with him to the gate myself, walking in the moonlight under the holly trees. I trembled a little; but I was happy – very happy. He held me long in his arms ere he would part with me – the last brief parting ere we would have no need to part any more. I said, looking up from his face unto the stars, "Laurence, in our full joy, let us thank God, and pray Him to bless us."

His heart seemed bursting: he bowed his proud head, dropped it down upon my shoulder, and cried, "Nay, rather pray Him to forgive me. Adelaide, I am not worthy of happiness – I am not worthy of you."

He, to talk in this way! and about me! but I answered him soothingly, so that he might feel how dear was my love – how entire my trust.

He said, at last, half mournfully, "You are content to take me then, just as I am; to forgive my past – to bear with my present – to give hope to my future. Will you do this, my love, my Adelaide?"

I answered, solemnly, "I will." Then, for the first time, I dared to lift my arms to his neck; and as he stooped I kissed his forehead. It was the seal of this my promise – which may God give me strength to keep evermore!

We were laughing to-day – Laurence and I – about first loves. It was scarcely a subject for mirth; but one of his bachelor friends had been telling us of a new-married couple, who, in some comical fashion, mutually made the discovery of each other's "first loves." I said to my husband, smiling happily, "that he need have no such fear." And I repeated, half in sport, the lines —

"'He was her own, her ocean treasure, castLike a rich wreck – her first love, and her last.'

So it was with your poor Adelaide." Touched by the thought, my gayety melted almost into tears. But I laughed them off, and added, "Come, Laurence, confess the same. You never, never loved any one but me?"

He looked pained, said coldly, "I believe I have not given cause – " then stopped. How I trembled; but I went up to him, and whispered, "Laurence, dearest, forgive me." He looked at me a moment, then caught me passionately to his breast. I wept there a little – my heart was so full. Yet I could not help again murmuring that question – "You love me? you do love me?"

"I love you as I never before loved woman. I swear this in the sight of heaven. Believe it, my wife!" was his vehement answer. I hated myself for having so tried him. My dear, my noble husband! I was mad to have a moment's doubt of thee.

* * * Nearly a year married, and it seems a brief day: yet it seems, also, like a lifetime – as if I had never known any other. My Laurence! daily I grow closer to him – heart to heart. I understand him better – if possible, I love him more: not with the wild worship of my girlhood, but with something dearer – more home-like. I would not have him an "angel," if I could. I know all his little faults and weaknesses quite well – I do not shut my eyes on any of them; but I gaze openly at them, and love them down. There is love enough in my heart to fill up all chasms – to remove all stumbling-blocks from our path. Ours is truly a wedded life: not two jarring lives, but an harmonious and complete one.

I have taken a long journey, and am somewhat dreary at being away, even for three days, from my pleasant home. But Laurence was obliged to go, and I would not let him go alone; though, from tender fear, he urged me to stay. So kind and thoughtful he was too. Because his engagements here would keep him much from me, he made me take likewise my sister Louisa. She is a good girl, and a dear girl; but I miss Laurence; I did especially in my walk to-day, through a lovely, wooded country and a sweet little village. I was thinking of him all the time; so much so, that I quite started when I heard one of the village children shouted after as "Laurence."

Very foolish it is of me – a loving weakness I have not yet got over – but I never hear the name my husband bears without a pleasant thrill; I never even see it written up in the street without turning again to look at it. So, unconsciously, I turned to the little rosy urchin, whom his grandam honored by the name of "Laurence."

A pretty, sturdy boy, of five or six years old – a child to glad any mother. I wondered had he a mother! I staid and asked. – I always notice children now. Oh! wonderful, solemn mystery sleeping at my heart, my hope – my joy – my prayer! I think, with tears, how I may one day watch the gambols of a boy like this; and how, looking down in his little face, I may see therein my Laurence's eyes. For the sake of this future – which God grant! – I went and kissed the little fellow who chanced to bear my husband's name. I asked the old woman about the boy's mother. "Dead! dead five years." And his father? A sneer – a muttered curse – bitter words about "poor folk" and "gentle-folk." Alas! alas! I saw it all. Poor, beautiful, unhappy child!

My heart was so pained, that I could not tell the little incident to Laurence. Even when my sister began to talk of it, I asked her to cease. But I pondered over it the more. I think, if I am strong enough, I will go and see the poor little fellow again to-morrow. One might do some good – who knows?

To-morrow has come – to-morrow has gone. What a gulf lies between that yesterday and its to-morrow!

* * * Louisa and I walked to the village – she very much against her will. "It was wrong and foolish," she said; "one should not meddle with vice." And she looked prudent and stern. I tried to speak of the innocent child – of the poor dead mother; and the shadow of motherhood over my own soul taught me compassion towards both. At last, when Louisa was half angry, I said I would go for I had a secret reason which she did not know. – Thank heaven those words were put into my lips.

So, we went. My little beauty of a boy was not there; and I had the curiosity to approach the cottage where his grandmother lived. It stood in a garden, with a high hedge around. I heard a child's laugh, and could not forbear peeping through. There was my little favorite, held aloft in the arms of a man, who stood half hidden behind a tree.

"He looks like a gentleman: perhaps it is the wretch of a father!" whispered Louisa. "Sister, we ought to come away." And she walked forward indignantly.

But I still staid – still looked. Despite my horror of the crime, I felt a sort of attraction: it was some sign of grace in the man that he should at least acknowledge and show kindness to his child. And the miserable mother! I, a happy wife, could have wept to think of her. I wondered, did he think of her, too? He might; for, though the boy laughed and chattered, lavishing on him all those pet diminutives which children make out of the sweet word "father," I did not hear this father answer by a single word.

Louisa came to hurry me away. "Hush!" I said: "one moment and I will go."

The little one had ceased chattering: the father put it down, and came forth from his covert.

Heaven it was my husband!

* * * I think I should then have fallen down dead, save for one thing – I turned and met my sister's eyes. They were full of horror – indignation – pity. She, too, had seen.

Like lightning there flashed across me all the future: my father's wrath – the world's mockery —his shame.

I said – and I had strength to say it quite calmly – "Louisa, you have guessed our secret; but keep it – promise!"

She looked aghast – confounded.

"You see," I went on, and I actually smiled, "you see, I know all about it, and so does Laurence. It is – a friend's child."

May heaven forgive me for that lie I told: it was to save my husband's honor.

Day after day, week after week, goes by, and yet I live – live, and living, keep the horrible secret in my soul. It must remain there buried forever, now.

It so chanced; that after that hour I did not see my husband for some weeks: Louisa and I were hastily summoned home. So I had time to think what I was to do.

I knew all now – all the mystery of his fits of gloom – his secret sufferings. It was remorse, perpetual remorse. No marvel! And for a moment my stern heart said, "Let it be so." I, too, was wronged. Why did he marry me, and hide all this? O vile! O cruel! Then the light broke on me: his long struggle against his love – his terror of winning mine. But he did love me: half-maddening as I was, I grasped at that. Whatever blackness was on the past, he loved me now – he had sworn it – "more than he ever loved woman."

I was yet young: I knew little of the wickedness of the world; but I had heard of that mad passion of a moment, which may seize on a heart not wholly vile, and afterward a whole lifetime of remorse works out the expiation. Six years ago! he must have been then a mere boy. If he had thus erred in youth, I, who knew his nature, knew how awful must have been the repentance of his manhood. On any humbled sinner I would have mercy – how much rather must I have mercy on my husband?

I had mercy. Some, stern in virtue, may condemn me – but God knoweth all.

He is – I believe it in my soul – he is a good man now, and striving more and more after good. I will help him – I will save him. Never shall he know that secret, which out of pride or bitterness might drive him back from virtue, or make him feel shame before me.

I took my resolution – I have fulfilled it. I have met him again, as a faithful wife should meet her husband: no word, no look, betrays, or shall betray, what I know. All our outward life goes on as before: his tenderness for me is constant – overflowing. But oh! the agony, worse than death, of knowing my idol fallen – that where I once worshiped, I can only pity, weep, and pray.

He told me yesterday he did not feel like the same man that he was before his marriage. He said I was his good angel: that through me he became calmer, happier every day. It was true: I read the change in his face. Others read it too. Even his aged mother told me, with tears, how much good I had done to Laurence. For this, thank God!

My husband! my husband! At times I could almost think this horror was some delirious dream, cast it all to the winds, and worship him as of old. I do feel, as I ought, deep tenderness – compassion. No, no! let me not deceive myself: I love him; in defiance of all I love him, and shall do evermore.

Sometimes his olden sufferings come over him, and then I, knowing the whole truth, feel my very soul moved within me. If he had only told me all: if I could now lay my heart open before him, with all its love and pardon; if he would let me comfort him, and speak of hope, of heaven's mercy – of atonement, even on earth. But I dare not – I dare not.

Since, from this silence which he has seen fit to keep, I must not share the struggle, but must stay afar off – then, like the prophet who knelt on the rock, supplicating for Israel in the battle, let my hands fall not, nor my prayer cease, until heaven sendeth the victory.

Nearer and nearer comes the hour which will be to me one of a double life, or of death. Sometimes, remembering all I have lately suffered, there comes to me a heavy foreboding. What, if I, so young, to whom, one little year ago, life seemed an opening paradise – what, if I should die – die and leave him, and he never know how deeply I have loved – how much I have forgiven?

Yes; he might know, and bitterly. Should Louisa tell. But I will prevent that.

In my husband's absence, I have sat up half the night writing; that, in case of my death, he may be made acquainted with the whole truth, and hear it from me alone. I have poured out all my sufferings – all my tenderness: I have implored him, for the love of heaven, for the love of me, that he would in every way atone for the past, and lead for the future a righteous life; that his sin may be forgiven, and that, after death, we may meet in joy evermore.

I have been to church with Laurence – for the last time, as I think. We knelt together, and took the sacrament. His face was grave, but peaceful. When we came home, we sat in our beautiful little rose-garden: he, looking so content – even happy; so tender over me – so full of hope for the future. How should this be, if he had on his soul that awful sin? All seemed a delusion of my own creating: I doubted even the evidence of my own senses. I longed to throw myself on his bosom, and tell him all. But then, from some inexplicable cause, the olden cloud came over him; I read in his face, or thought I read, the torturing remorse which at once repelled me from him, and yet drew me again, with a compassion that was almost stronger than love.

I thought I would try to say, in some passing way, words that, should I die, might afterward comfort him, by telling him how his misery had wrung my heart, and how I did not scorn him, not even for his sin.

"Laurence," I said, very softly, "I wish that you and I had known one another all our lives – from the time we were little children."

"Oh! that we had! then I had been a better and a happier man, my Adelaide!" was his answer.

"We will not talk of that. Please God, we may live a long and worthy life together; but if not – "

He looked at me with fear. "What is that you say? Adelaide, you are not going to die? you, whom I love, whom I have made happy, you have no cause to die."

Oh, agony! he thought of the one who had cause – to whose shame and misery death was better than life. Poor wretch! she, too, might have loved him. Down, wife's jealousy! down, woman's pride! It was long, long ago. She is dead; and he – Oh! my husband! may God forgive me according as I pardon you!

I said to him once more, putting my arm round his neck, leaning so that he could only hear, not see me. "Laurence, if I should die, remember how happy we have been, and how dearly we have loved one another. Think of nothing sad or painful; think only that, living or dying, I loved you as I have loved none else in the world. And so, whatever chances, be content."

He seemed afraid to speak more, lest I should be agitated; but as he kissed me, I felt on my cheek tears – tears that my own eyes, long sealed by misery, had no power to shed.

* * * I have done all I wished to do. I have set my house in order. Now, whichever way God wills the event, I am prepared. Life is not to me what it once was: yet, for Laurence's sake, and for one besides – Ah! now I dimly guess what that poor mother felt, who, dying, left her child to the mercy of the bitter world. But, heaven's will be done. I shall write here no more – perhaps forever.

* * * It is all past and gone. I have been a mother – alas! have been; but I never knew it. I woke out of a long blank dream – a delirium of many weeks – to find the blessing had come, and been taken away. One only giveth —ONE only taketh. Amen!

For seven days, as they tell me, my babe lay by my side – its tiny hands touched mine – it slept at my breast. But I remember nothing – nothing! I was quite mad all the while. And then – it died – and I have no little face to dream of – no memory of the sweetness that has been. it is all to me as if I had never seen my child.

If I had only had my senses for one day – one hour: if I could but have seen Laurence when they gave him his baby boy. Bitterly he grieves, his mother says, because he has no heir.

* * * My first waking fear was horrible. Had I betrayed any thing during my delirium? I think not. Louisa says I lay all the time silent, dull, and did not even notice my husband, though he bent over me like one distracted. Poor Laurence! I see him but little now: they will not suffer me. It is perhaps well: I could not bear his grief and my own too: I might not be able to keep my secret safe.

I went yesterday to look at the tiny mound – all that is left to me of my dream of motherhood. Such a happy dream as it was, too! How it comforted me, many a time: how I used to sit and think of my darling that was to come: to picture it lying in my arms – playing at my feet – growing in beauty – a boy, a youth, a man! And this – this is all – this little grave.

Perhaps I may never have another child. If so, all the deep love which nature teaches, and which nature has even now awakened in my heart, must find no object, and droop and wither away, or be changed into repining. No! please God, that last shall never be: I will not embitter the blessings I have, by mourning over those denied.

But I must love something, in the way that I would have loved my child. I have lost my babe; some babe may have lost a mother. A thought comes – I shudder – I tremble – yet I follow it. I will pause a little, and then —

In Mr. Shelmerdine's absence, I have accomplished my plan. I have contrived to visit the place where lives that hapless child – my husband's child.

I do believe my love to Laurence must be such as never before was borne to man by woman. It draws me even toward this little one: forgetting all wife-like pride, I seem to yearn over the boy. But is this strange? In my first girlish dreams, many a time I have taken a book he had touched – a flower he had gathered – hid it from my sisters, kissed it, and wept over it for days. It was folly; but it only showed how precious I held every thing belonging to him. And should I not hold precious what is half himself – his own son?

I will go and see the child to-morrow.

Weeks have passed, and yet I have had no strength to tell what that to-morrow brought. Strange book of human fate! each leaf closed until the appointed time – if we could but turn it, and read. Yet it is best not.

I went to the cottage – alone, of course. I asked the old woman to let me come in and rest, for I was a stranger, weak and tired. She did so kindly, remembering, perhaps, how I had once noticed the boy. He was her grandson she told me – her daughter's child.

Her daughter! And this old creature was a coarse, rough-spoken woman – a laborer's wife. Laurence Shelmerdine – the elegant – the refined – what madness must have possessed him!

"She died very young, then, your daughter?" I found courage to say.

"Ay, ay; in a few months after the boy's birth. She was but a weakly thing at best, and she had troubles enow."

Quickly came the blood to my heart – to my cheek – in bitter, bitter shame. Not for myself, but for him. I shrank like a guilty thing before that mother's eye. I dared not ask – what I longed to hear – concerning the poor girl, and her sad history.

"Is the child like her?" was all I could say, looking to where the little one was playing, at the far end of the garden. I was glad not to see him nearer. "Was his mother as beautiful as he?"

"Ay, a good-looking lass enough; but the little lad's like his father, who was a gentleman born: though Laurence had better ha' been a plowman's son. A bad business Bess made of it. To this day I dunnot know her right name, nor little Laurence's there; and so I canna make his father own him. He ought, for the lad's growing up as grand a gentleman as himself: he'll never do to live with poor folk like granny."

"Alas!" I cried, forgetting all but my compassion; "then how will the child bear his lot of shame!"

"Shame!" and the old woman came up fiercely to me. "You'd better mind your own business: my Bess was as good as you."

I trembled violently, but could not speak. The woman went on:

"I dunnot care if I blab it all out, though Bess begged me not. She was a fool, and the young fellow something worse. His father tried – may-be he wished to try, too – but they couldna undo what had been done. My girl was safe married to him, and the little lad's a gentleman's lawful son."

Oh! joy beyond belief! Oh! bursting blessed tears! My Laurence! my Laurence!

* * * I have no clear recollection of any thing more, save that I suppose the woman thought me mad, and fled out of the cottage. My first consciousness is of finding myself quite alone, with the door open, and a child looking in at me in wonderment, but with a gentleness such as I have seen my husband wear. No marvel I had loved that childish face: it was such as might have been his when he was a boy.

I cried, tremulously, "Laurence! little Laurence!" He came to me, smiling and pleased. One faint struggle I had – forgive me, poor dead girl! – and then I took the child in my arms, and kissed him as though I had been his mother For thy sake – for thy sake – my husband!

I understood all the past now. The wild, boyish passion, making an ideal out of a poor village girl – the unequal union – the dream fading into common day – coarseness creating repulsion – the sting of one folly which had marred a lifetime – dread of the world, self-reproach, and shame – all these excuses I could find: and yet Laurence had acted ill. And when the end came: no wonder that remorse pursued him, for he had broken a girl's heart. She might, she must, have loved him. I wept for her – I, who so passionately loved him too.

He was wrong, also, grievously wrong, in not acknowledging the child. Yet there might have been reasons. His father ruled with an iron hand; and, then, when he died, Laurence had just known me. Alas! I weave all coverings to hide his fault. But surely this strong, faithful love was implanted in my heart for good. It shall not fail him now: it shall encompass him with arms of peace: it shall stand between him and the bitter past: it shall lead him on to a worthy and happy future.

There is one thing which he must do: I will strengthen him to do it. Yet, when I tell him all, how will he meet it? No matter; I must do right. I have walked through this cloud of misery – shall my courage fail me now?

He came home, nor knew that I had been away. Something oppressed him: his old grief perhaps. My beloved! I have a balm even for that, now.

* * * I told him the story, as it were in a parable, not of myself, but of another – a friend I had. His color came and went – his hands trembled in my hold. I hid nothing: I told of the wife's first horrible fear – of her misery – and the red flush mounted to his very brow. I could have fallen at his feet, and prayed forgiveness; but I dared not yet. At last I spoke of the end, still using the feigned names I had used all along.

He said, hoarsely, "Do you think the wife – a good and pure woman – would forgive all this?"

"Forgive! Oh! Laurence – Laurence!" and I clung to him and wept.

A doubt seemed to strike him. "Adelaide – tell me – "

"I have told. Husband, forgive me! I know all, and still I love you – I love you!"

I did not say, I pardon. I would not let him think that I felt I had need to pardon.

Laurence sank down at my feet, hid his face on my knees, and wept.

* * * The tale of his youth was as I guessed. He told it me the same night, when we sat in the twilight gloom. I was glad of this – that not even his wife's eyes might scan too closely the pang it cost him to reveal these long-past days. But all the while he spoke my head was on his breast, that he might feel I held my place there still, and that no error, no grief, no shame, could change my love for him, nor make me doubt his own, which I had won.

My task is accomplished. I rested not, day or night, until the right was done. Why should he fear the world's sneer, when his wife stands by him – his wife, who most of all might be thought to shrink from this confession that must be made? But I have given him comfort – ay, courage. I have urged him to do his duty, which is one with mine.

My husband has acknowledged his first marriage, and taken home his son. His mother, though shocked and bewildered at first, rejoiced when she saw the beautiful boy – worthy to be the heir of the Shelmerdines. All are happy in the thought. And I —

I go, but always secretly, to the small daisy-mound. My own lost one! my babe, whose face I never saw! If I have no child on earth, I know there is a little angel waiting me in heaven.

Let no one say I am not happy, as happy as one can be in this world: never was any woman more blessed than I am in my husband and my son —mine. I took him as such: I will fulfill the pledge while I live.

* * * The other day, our little Laurence did something wrong. He rarely does so – he is his father's own child for gentleness and generosity. But here he was in error: he quarreled with his Aunt Louisa, and refused to be friends. Louisa was not right either: she does not half love the boy.

I took my son on my lap, and tried to show him the holiness and beauty of returning good for evil, of forgetting unkindness, of pardoning sin. He listened, as he always listens to me. After a while, when his heart was softened, I made him kneel down beside me, saying the prayer – "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."