Our readers must picture to themselves the jealous temperament of this man—his intense, all-absorbing love for his wife—and then they may form some idea of his present agony; for this it was. His heart-strings seemed tightened as if a breath would snap them, like a lute too finely strung, over which we pass the fingers in dread.
"Miles!" she cried, clasping his arm, "hear me—hear all! I—I—I was afraid to tell you!" and the tears gushed from her eyes anew.
He released her grasp, and quietly reseating her, but as some one he touched with repulsion, said, with his cold, stern eyes bent on her, "Afraid to tell me! Am I then so much an object of terror to you? I who——" The tone was unnatural, for his heart was bursting. "I," he continued, gradually raising his voice till it trembled with various emotions, "who have been gentle as a woman with you. I thought you so loving, so timid in your love, I feared to startle you by a rough tone—and you are afraid of me! All my love for you has only brought forth this—fear! Oh! when I said my heart was too old for yours, I was indeed right. I am not old—young still—but old at heart; and there, where I have given all, I meet only fear!" He passed his hand over his brow, as if his brain were burning within. "Only fear—only fear!" he muttered; "and I, fool, thought she loved me!"
"So I do, Miles, my own dear husband," she cried, dropping on her knees, and holding her trembling hands up to him in supplication, while the tears rolled heavily down her upturned face; "I do love you, Miles—on my soul, I do, more than all the world beside; but I feared to tell you, for Dora frightened me so much about this man's visit."
"Lady Dora!" he cried—"when was she here?"
"Yesterday, Miles," sobbed she. "In my trouble, I forgot to tell you;" and, rising, she dropped on a seat.
"There was a time, Minnie," he said bitterly, looking at the girl as he stood with crossed arms before her, where she sat trembling, "you never forgot or concealed any thing from me. Times are sadly changed; or, perhaps, 'tis I who have been self-deceived all this long time, and read you as I hoped, not as you really are. In good truth, we know no one till we try them. 'Tis your nature, perhaps, child. You tried your young wings at home, and now you are giving me the advantage of your perfected flight. I have walked with you against others on this crooked road: I deserve to meet with a path where you turn round upon—myself!"
"Miles! for pity's sake," she articulated, almost suffocated by emotion, "have mercy on me; you are unjust and cruel!"
He strode the room with clenched hands, endeavouring to subdue the many passions in his breast. She rose like a spirit so noiselessly, and, gliding beside him, grasped his arm again. "Forgive me, Miles," she whispered with quivering lips. Her touch roused all the indignation he was endeavouring to subdue.
"Forgive you!" he exclaimed, flinging her hand from him as if it burned him with its contact. "Forgive you!" and he stood before her with a wild look of passion. "You, who have so bitterly wounded and deceived me—and for whom? A man—the stranger of a day! Yet how do I know this? Perhaps you have met often; and now I think of it, he does not name in his note having been presented to you by your cousin. Fools!" he laughed—"poor fools! you have ill-managed your duplicity. I read you all—all—and so you will discover." So saying, he rushed from the room; and in a few minutes afterwards quitted the house. Poor Minnie could not stay him—she had fainted.