A great horror possessed her now—a dread and gloom came over her, with a painful nervous terror—a kind of hunted emotion—a fear of what might next ensue!
Yet she took no one into her confidence, not even Allan—on her part a fatal error.
After all her past sweet intercourse with him, their delayed marriage—delayed by the illness incident to Holcroft's outrage—and his too probable speedy departure on foreign service, was she now to harrow him up by a reference to her folly, her petulance, and her silly degrading flirtation with this man, who now proved such a pitiful, such an unfathomable villain!
What if Allan should see suddenly that fatal photo in a shop window? This possibility plainly stared her in the face; yet she was silent, and believed that ere this issue came to pass, she was doomed to be tortured and victimised by Holcroft again; and the thought, the fear of this, gave her a kind of fever of the spirit, which made her quite ill, and bewildered her friends.
Money had evidently been given by her to Holcroft—no small sum too; and for what purpose? Remembering his threat if she exposed his rascality, her tongue was now tied by a most unwise terror. Ill and harrassed, she remained much in her room and avoided society.
Allan, as he said resentfully, failed 'to see the situation,' and in a gust of pique and anger, feeling himself somewhat degraded by Olive's bearing, resigned his extended leave and joined his regiment, as Olive said, resolved to 'sulk in Edinburgh Castle, rather than have an explanation,' rather unreasonably forgetting that she had steadily refused to give one.
She felt painfully that the mystery of the money given to Holcroft was calculated to compromise her with her kindred; but what was that when compared with the awful thundercloud which hung over her, if he made the public use he threatened of the photo!
Her soul died within her. Meanwhile Allan struggled hard to make himself believe that he might yet be happy with Olive; that he had perhaps no solid reason for being otherwise; but it would not do.
'Hang it, what does all this new mystery mean?' he would say to himself. 'We seem fated to misunderstand each other somehow. After all, she seems to love her pride more than me, still!'
And Olive knew that it was mingled pride and fear that had opened a kind of chasm between her and Allan again; yet a little sense, a little courage and candour, might have closed it speedily enough, and smoothed away the anger the complication raised at times within her; while to Allan the situation was certainly an intolerable one, and Olive's silence or reticence made it all the more so.