Two instincts were dominant in Edith—love and jealousy, inextricably intertwined, disputing for mastership. Love and its yearning anxiety—a cord, so to speak, of which jealousy held the other end, pulled her here.
"But it's so strange of him," she said; "and his letters are strange! I don't understand it at all. Can't you help me to understand, Elizabeth? You are so much cleverer than I! Has it anything to do with music?"
There was no mistaking the sudden and piteous sincerity of her tone. Half a minute ago she had been all anger, all hate, all suspicion. Now she appealed to her whom she had hated and suspected.
Elizabeth felt her eyes grow suddenly dim.
"If I were you, I wouldn't worry, Edith!" she said. "I should be quiet, not let my thoughts run away with me, and—and trust that everything is all right."
"Then there is something wrong?" asked Edith.
"I didn't say that. I didn't mean to imply it. Take it that he is busy, that he has visits he feels he must pay. Why should he conceal things from you? Why should you assume there is anything to conceal?"
Edith instinctively shrank from making the direct accusation which all this week her jealousy had been dinning in her ears so that her head rang with it. Elizabeth would simply deny it, but it would put her on her guard (here jealousy was busy to prompt) and the chance of finding out more would be lost. Her emotion had narrowed and enfeebled the scope and power of thought; she could make no plan.
"I am very unhappy," she said simply.
Elizabeth took a step towards her.