He wondered how it was that he had not admired her before, as one wonders how one has passed the tuft of grass without detecting the nestling place of the sweet and hidden violet.
This look was also a reminescence. He now remembered the dear little child who had so often tried to conceal his faults, and who had given him innocent kisses when he was a boy.
All these things seemed to strengthen him in his admiration for the sweet and gentle farmer’s wife.
Once this feeling took possession of him it grew with such strength and rapidity as to be almost overwhelming. His mind very shortly afterwards became filled with this woman.
He would sit in long reveries, dreaming to himself that he held her hand in his, and that she was whispering to him and caressing him tenderly, and at night, when the house was hushed to rest, when all was silent within and without, when the cries of the night birds were heard no more, when the moon was shining brightly and covered him with her pale light, visions more voluptuous still would seize him in their grasp—visions so powerful and intense that they made him rise trembling, almost shrinking from his sleep. And when he awoke he would find that it was yet dark night, and that he was alone, and he would press his hands to his burning brow and sigh, as men sigh when evil spirits are wrestling at their hearts.
Beneath the dark mantle of the night he conceived and plotted a most diabolical design. It was to destroy the happiness of two fond hearts, whom the roses of youth and love had twined lovingly together.
But roses soon wither when touched by a poisoned hand. In this world thorns alone are those which do not die.
And to gratify a whim this wretch would lead a poor woman, in the one weak moment of her life, from peace, from innocence, from happiness for ever! Oh why are men so wicked and women so weak? Why is it that the good are the victims of the bad, and that the foolish bear all the sufferings of the world upon their breasts?
But Mr. Fortescue was under the surveillance of one who had from the very first looked upon him with eyes of suspicion and mistrust—this was the girl Kitty.
From his fits of abstraction, from the clouds which constantly gathered on his forehead, and from her own indefinable misgivings, she learnt that there was something on his mind, and began to watch him with the eyes of a lynx.