With what insidious craft the question was put! How quietly the new-born serpent coiled itself in her eyes as the lashes drooped over them!
"So much? That is impossible! No man—no woman ever gave so great worship to a fellow-being! He was not even aware of it, I think; for this love was a treasure that I kept closely locked. It must have been tender questioning, indeed, that could have drawn such feelings into expression."
"But still he loved you?"
"Loved me? Oh, yes; I never doubted it, even then; but after I became so helpless, so dependent on him for my very life—for if he had failed me I must have died—the beautiful affection of his nature manifested itself. He became my support, my very being. Oh! God has been exceedingly good to me!"
"And in all this devotion, this excess of love—for so I must think it—has no distrust ever arisen between you?"
"Distrust? Who could distrust him?"
Mrs. Dennison did not seem to hear—she was musing, with her eyes on the floor. At last she murmured, vaguely,
"But jealousy is the natural growth of inordinate affection. I wonder it never sprung up between you. What if he had loved another person?"
"Loved another person, and I know it? That would have been death!"
Again the woman's eyes gleamed so brightly that I could see the flash through her thick lashes. She arose and walked hurriedly up and down the room.