CHAPTER LIII.
A QUARREL.
From that hour all pretense of peace was at an end between them. Lady Chandos was justly indignant and wounded. If her husband had trusted her all might, even then, have been well, but he did not; he said to himself that she would forget the story of her annoyance in time, and all would be well; he did not give his wife credit for the depth of feeling that she really possessed. Fiercest, most cruel jealousy had taken hold of the gentle lady, it racked and tortured her; the color faded from her face, the light from her eyes; she grew thin and pale; at night she could not sleep, by day she could not rest; all her sweetness, grace and amiability, seemed to have given way to a grave sadness; the sound of her laughter, her bright words, died away; nothing interested her. She who had never known a trouble or a care, now wore the expression of one who was heart-broken; she shrunk from all gayety, all pleasures, all parties; she was like the ghost of her former self; yet after those words of her husband's she never spoke again of Madame Vanira. The sword was sheathed in her heart and she kept it there.
There is no pain so cruel as jealousy; none that so quickly deteriorates a character; it brings so many evils in its train—suspicion, envy, hatred of life, distrust in every one and in everything; it is the most fatal passion that ever takes hold of a human heart, and turns the kindest nature to gall. There was no moment during the day in which Lady Chandos did not picture her husband with her rival; she drove herself almost mad with the pictures she made in her own mind. All the cruel pain, the sullen brooding, the hot anguish, the desolation, the jealousy seemed to surge over her heart and soul like the waves of a deadly sea. If she saw her husband silent and abstracted, she said he was thinking of Madame Vanira; if she saw him laugh and light of heart she said he was pleased because he was going to see Madame Vanira. She had sensible and reasonable grounds for jealousy, but she was unreasonably jealous.
"Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ."
It was so with Lady Marion, and her life at last grew too bitter to be borne. There was excuse for Lord Chandos, the mistake was in renewing the acquaintance; a mistake that can never be remedied.
People were beginning to talk; when Lord Chandos was mentioned, they gave significant smiles. Against Madame Vanira there had never been even the faintest rumor of scandal; but a certain idea was current in society—that Lord Chandos admired the queen of song. No one insinuated the least wrong, but significant smiles followed the mention of either name.
"Madame Vanira was at Lady Martyn's last night," one would say.
And the laughing answer was always: