#34 The Wife of Seven Husbands : [ Marcu, 
« J say, till I knew thee, never—never !” As she said this with great 
Stress on the word never, Martyn, whose arm was girdling her, felt her 
shudder strongly, and he shook too. 
After a short pause, he resumed, “ Didst thou, then, not love thy other 
husbands, Alice ?” 
« Love them! No, Martyn—no; I hated them—hated them with 4 
deadly hate.” And at these words her face grew lividly pale, and her 
eyes fixed on her husband’s with a strange and snake-like glistening, 
that his marrow thrilled again, and his heart beat thick. He spoke to 
her, however, in a meek voice, and said— 
« Why didst thou hate them so, Alice?” 
** By cause that they were drunkards and faithless, Martyn; and, 
therefore, I hated them so ; and, therefore, were it possible thou shouldst 
be such, I should even so hate thee, much, very much as I do now love 
thee.” She uttered these words in a tone of deep tenderness, and fell 
weeping on his neck. 
He strove, both by caresses and assurances, to soothe her ; but it was 
some time before he could do so. The conversation was not resumed; and 
they ‘retired to bed. But Martyn’s mind continued very restless, and he 
lay awake long after his wife had gone to-sleep ; he could not dismiss 
her words from his brain, nor efface the impression they had made thereon ; 
and, after turning the matter over a great many times, he came to the 
resolution that he would see a little into the matter. At last he fell 
asleep, but it was only to wake soon froma wild dream. He thought 
he and his wife were still sitting on the low settle, as they had 
been that evening; and that their “faces were lit up, as they then had 
been, by the fitful glimmering of the dying embers—that her’s wore the 
same livid hue, and her eyes glistened in the same snake-like manner, 
that had then so frightened him; and that they were fixed, as then; 
upon his, and, though her look was most shocking, that he was fasci= 
nated by it, and could not move away his glance from her’s; and ‘her 
face kept growing paler and paler; and her eyes brighter and brighter, 
and more ‘and moré terrible; and he grew sick and sicker at heart, and 
felt a reeling in his brain, and a choking in his throat ; and still he 
could not turn his eyes from her. And, behold! her long black curls, 
that hung about her neck and shoulders, seemed of a sudden, and yet 
slowly, to become instinct with life; and, one by one, they uncurled 
themselyes—some moving their ends to and fro, and up and down, as he 
had seen leeches do in a vase when they sought to fix their heads some= 
where—others, again, twined themselves round the carved rail-work of 
the settle—while others, arching and stretching themselves out, twisted 
round his neck so tightly that they nearly throttled him. He woke up 
in alarm and agony, and found his wife’s long hair, indeed, around his 
neck—and her arms, too ; and her head was lying on his chest, and she 
was sobbing violently. He asked her what ailed her; and she said she 
had had a dreadful dream, all of which that she could recollect was that 
she had seen him murdered. 
_ Martyn slept no more that night; and, the next morning, he rose 
betimes, and, pretending business, he went out at an early hour. Busi- 
nsss, however, he had none. He walked forth at the Cripplegate, and 
strolled through the Finsburie fields, and so away into the country, with+ 
‘out any fixed determination or even knowledge of whither he was going. 
It was a drizzly day, too; but he seemed unconscious of it, though he 
Was soon drenched ‘to the skin. “But he kept walking about, thinking 
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