He came in, but left a few minutes later. She was strangely unresponsive to his tender inquiries. Her thoughts were of another, was his quick conclusion as he fled from her presence before the harsh accusations could break from his eyes.
In his den once more, with the door closed, he gave himself up completely to black thoughts. He recalled his words to her, uttered years ago, half in jest and half in earnest; he had horrified her beyond expression by telling her how he would punish a wife if he were the husband she deceived. With a grim, lurid smile he remembered the penalty. He had said he would not kill; he would disfigure the woman frightfully and permit her to live as a moral example to other wives. Slitting her mouth from ear to ear or cutting off her nose--these were two of the penalties he would inflict. He now felt less brutal. He might kill, but he would not disfigure. For an hour he sat and wondered what had been the feelings of his old friend George Driscoll just before he deliberately slew his faithless wife. He remembered saying to other friends at the time that Driscoll had "done right."
This night of black shadows--he did not sleep at all--was really the beginning of the end. He forgot the presidency that was to be handed out to him; he forgot everything but the horrid canker that gnawed into his heart and brain.
Day and night he writhed in silent agony, a prey to the savage jealousy that grew and grew until it absorbed all other emotions. Scandal, divorce, dishonour, murder swept before the mind of this man who had been of the people and who could not condone. The people kill.
For a week he waited and watched and suffered. What he knew of men told him that they do not devote themselves to the wives of others with honourable motives behind them. He convinced himself that he knew the world; he had seen so much of it. The man aged years in that single week of jealousy and suspense. His face went haggard, his eyes took on a strange gleam, his manner was that of a man in grave trouble.
Day after day this piteous, frenzied man who swayed thousands with his hand stooped to deal with the smallest movements of one man and one woman. Despite his most intense desire to drive himself into other and higher channels, he found himself skulking and spying and conniving with but one low end in view.
He employed every acute sense in the effort to justify his suspicions. Time and again he went home at unusual hours, fearing all the while that he might incur the pain of finding Bansemer there. He even visited the man in his office, always rejoicing in the fact that he found him there at the time. He watched the mail in the morning; he planned to go out of nights and then hurried home deliberately but unexpectedly. Through it all he said no word to Frances Cable or Jane. He asked no questions, but he was being beaten down by apprehensions all the while.