These facts wrought like madness in my brain. Then, too, in her delirium she raves of HIM! Is not that significant? True, it comes from the lips of that malicious old woman! she, who had already hinted to me that my wife--her daughter--was likely to be as faithless to me as she had been to herself. Still, it is significant, even if it be only the invention of this old woman. It showed what she conjectured--what she thought to be a natural result of these practices which had prompted her suspicions as well as my own. How hot was the iron-pressure upon my brain--how keen and scorching was that fiery arrow in my soul, when I took my place of watch beside the unconscious form of my wife, God alone can know. If I am criminal--if I have erred with wildest error--surely I have struggled with deepest misery. I have been misled by wo, not temptation! Sore has been my struggle, sore my suffering, even in the moment of my greatest fault and folly. Sore!---how sore! CHAPTER XXXIII. STILL THE CLOUD. For three days and nights did I watch beside the sick bed of my wife. In all this time her fate continued doubtful. I doubt if any anxiety or attention could have exceeded mine; as it was clear to myself that, in spite of jealousy and suspicion, my love for her remained without diminution. Yet this watch was not maintained without some trials far more severe and searching than those which it produced upon the body. Her mind, wandering and purposeless, yet spoke to mine, and renewed all its racking doubts, and exaggerated all its nameless fears. Her veins burned with fever. She was fitfully delirious. Words fell from her at spasmodic moments--strange, incoherent words, but all full of meaning in my ears. I sat beside the bed on one hand, while, on one occasion, her mother occupied a seat upon that opposite. The eyes of my wife opened upon both of us--turned from me, convulsively, with an expression, as I thought, of disgust, then closed--while her lips, taking up their language, poured forth a torrent of threats and reproaches.