Take your own way, and don't
blame me if anything happens."
Soon Christopher paid the penalty of returning reason. He suffered all
the poignant agony a great heart can endure.
So this was his reward for his great act of self-denial in leaving his
beloved wife. He had lost his patient; he had lost the income from that
patient; his wife was worse off than before, and had doubtless suffered
the anguish of a loving heart bereaved. His mind, which now seemed more
vigorous than ever, after its long rest, placed her before his very
eyes, pale, and worn with grief, in her widow's cap.
At the picture, he cried like the rain. He could give her joy, by
writing; but he could not prevent her from suffering a whole year of
misery.
Turning this over in connection with their poverty, his evil genius
whispered, "By this time she has received the six thousand pounds for
your death. SHE would never think of that; but her father has: and there
is her comfort assured, in spite of the caitiffs who left her husband to
drown like a dog.
"I know my Rosa," he thought. "She has swooned--ah, my poor darling--she
has raved--she has wept," he wept himself at the thought--"she has
mourned every indiscreet act, as if it was a crime.
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