Hardly, though, had he come to the conclusion that he was wrong, when a trifle set him off back in his former way of thinking, for his mind was now a chaos of wildering fancies, and the slightest thing set his jealous feelings in a blaze.
He would not speak to Hester; he would not take an open, manly way of seeing whether his suspicions were just; but, submitting his better parts to his distorted reason, he nursed his anguish, and so it fell out that one night he found himself watching his own house, in the full belief that his wife’s illness in the morning before he left for the office was a subterfuge, and that the time had come for her to take some step fatal to her future.
“But I will stop it,” muttered Dutch to himself, as with throbbing pulse and beating temples he avoided the gate, so as not to have his footsteps heard on the gravel, and, climbing the fence, entered his own garden like a thief.
He had hardly reached the little lawn when he heard the sound of wheels, and stepping behind a clump of laurels he stopped, listening with beating heart, for here was food for his suspicions.
As he expected, the fly stopped at the gate; a man in a cloak got out, went hastily up the path, knocked softly at the door, and was admitted on the instant.
Dutch paused, hesitating as to what he should do. Should he follow and enter? No, he decided that he would stay there, and stop them as they came out, for the fly was waiting.
Where would Hester be now? he asked himself, with the dimly-seen house seeming to swim before him; and the answer came as if hissed into his ear by some mocking fiend—
“In her bedroom, getting something for her flight.”
Half-a-dozen steps over the soft grass took him where he could see the window, and of course there was a light there, and then—
The blood seemed to rush to his brain, a horrible sense of choking came upon him, and he groaned as he staggered back, for there, plainly enough seen, was the figure of Hester, her hair hanging loose as she lay back over the arm of a man, who was half-leading, half-carrying her towards the door.