It seemed as though she could hardly do enough for them; the minute she heard that any one was sick or sorry she went to their aid. I have known this beautiful woman, whose husband adored her, give up a ball or a party to sit with some poor woman whose child was ill, or was ill herself. And I must speak, too, of her devotion—to see the earnest, tender piety on her beautiful face was marvelous.
"Look, John," Lance would whisper to me; "my wife looks like an angel."
I was obliged to own that she did. But what was the soul like that animated the beautiful body?
When we were talking—and we spent many hours together in the garden—I was struck with the beauty and nobility of her ideas. She took the right side of everything; her wisdom was full of tenderness; she never once gave utterance to a thought or sentence but that I was both pleased and struck with it. But for this haunting suspicion I should have pronounced her a perfect woman, for I could see no fault in her. I had been a fortnight at Dutton Manor, and but for this it would have been a very happy fortnight. Lance and I had fallen into old loving terms of intimacy, and Frances made a most lovable and harmonious third. A whole fortnight I had studied her, criticised her, and was more bewildered than ever—more sure of two things: The first was that it was next to impossible that she had ever been anything different to what she was now; the second, that she must be the woman I had seen on the pier. What, under those circumstances, was any man to do?
No single incident had happened to interrupt the tranquil course of life, but from day to day I grew more wretched with the weight of my miserable secret.
One afternoon, I remember that the lilacs were all in bloom, and Lance sat with his beautiful wife where a great group of trees stood. When I reached them they were speaking of the sea.
"I always long for the sea in summertime," said Lance; "when the sun is hot and the air full of dust, and no trees give shade, and the grass seems burned, I long for the sea. Love of water seems almost mania with me, from the deep blue ocean, with its foaming billows, to the smallest pool hidden in a wood. It is strange, Frances, with your beauty-loving soul, that you dislike the sea."
She had gathered a spray of the beautiful lilac and held it to her lips. Was it the shade of the flower, or did the color leave her face? If so, it was the first time I had seen it change.
"Do you really dislike the sea, Mrs. Fleming?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, laconically.