These questions were asked hurriedly, apprehensively, with a
look of vague terror, her cheoks whitening as she spoke, her eyes
darting wildly into mine, and her lips remaining parted after she
had spoken.
"Ah!" I exclaimed, keenly watching her. Her glance sank beneath
my gaze. I put my hand upon her own.
"What do I suspect I What should I suspect? Ha!"--Here I arrested
myself. My ardent anxiety to know the truth led me to forget my
caution; to exhibit a degree of eagerness, which might have proved
that I did suspect and seriously. To exhibit the possession of
jealousy was to place her upon her guard--such was the suggestion
of that miserable policy by which I had been governed--and defeat
the impression of that feeling of perfect security and indifference,
which I had been so long striving to awaken. I recovered myself,
with this thought, in season to re-assume this appearance.
"Your mind still wanders, Julia. What should I suspect? and whom?
You do not suppose me to be of a suspicious nature, do you?"
"Not altogether--not always--no! But, of course, there is nothing
to suspect. I do not know what I say. I believe I do wander."
This reply was also spoken hurriedly, but with an obvious effort
at composure. The eagerness with which she seized upon my words,
insisting upon the absence of any cause of suspicion, and ascribing to
her late delirium, the tacit admissions which her look and language
had made, I need not say, contributed to strengthen my suspicions,
and to confirm all the previous conjectures of my jealous spirit.
"Be quiet," I said with an air of sang froid. "Do not worry yourself
in this manner. You need sleep. Try for it, while I leave you."
"Do not leave me; sit beside me, dear Edward. I will sleep so much
better when you are beside me."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, believe me. Ah! that I could always keep you beside me!"
"What! you are for a new honeymoon?" I said this in a TONE of
merriment, which Heaven knows, I little felt.
"Do not speak of it so lightly, Edward. It is too serious a matter.
Ah! that you would always remain with me; that you would never
leave me."
"Pshaw! What sickly tenderness is this! Why, how could I earn my
bread or yours?"
"I do not mean that you should neglect your business, but that
when business is over, you should give me all your time as you
used to. Remember, how pleasantly we passed the evenings after
our marriage. Ah! how could you forget?"
"I do not, Julia."
"But you do not care for them. We spend no such evenings now!"
"No! but it is no fault of mine!" I said gloomily; then, interrupting
her answer, as if dreading that she might utter some simple but
true remark, which might refute the interpretation which my words
conveyed, that the fault was hers, I enjoined silence upon her.