He looked at her wildly for a moment, but her gaze was so steady that he dropped his eyes and moved slowly away.
Late in the night, when Regina awoke from a sleep sweeter and sounder than any she had yet enjoyed, she heard Paul's steps in the hall-way, on his way to bed.
"You have left me alone all night again," complained his wife, when he entered the room; "and I have had one of my nervous spells."
"You keep the room so confoundedly hot and full of camphor that it smothers me to stay here," was the crusty reply.
"Would you want me to keep the windows and shutters open, so as to let the mosquitoes come in and devour us?"
"Why do you keep the light burning till twelve in the night, then?"
"But, Paul, I can't read in the dark, can I? And I want some pastime, I am sure, so sick and feeble as I am," weeping for very pity of herself.
"Throw those foolish books out of the window; the camphor-bottle, too; let air and daylight into your room, and you'll soon get well and strong," he answered, willing to be kind and anxious to hush her distracting sobs.
Regina, in her room, breathed a little sigh of satisfaction; for though she could not hear the conversation, she could guess very nearly what Paul's reception had been: "Ah! my clever brother-in-law, yours is not a bed of roses, either;" and with this comforting reflection she dropped off to sleep.
Next morning, at the breakfast-table, Regina watched with placid interest the haggard face of Paul, and the furtive looks he threw over to where she sat. During the morning his wife was attacked with sick headache, "from reading those trashy novels," he said; and by night he was wandering through the house again, groaning in very anguish of spirit, and flying, at last, to his only refuge, the piano. Through the loud clanging of the chords there breathed a strain, now and then, of the song Regina had played; but in a moment it was drowned by the louder crashes, which almost shook the house, and seemed the outpouring of some wild spirit in its abject misery. Day followed day, and as the season advanced, and autumn set in, with stormy days and long, moonless nights, Paul grew more restless; and one night, when he had wandered through the house all day—"as though driven by the Fury of Remorse," Regina said—she went, unobserved, into the drawing-room, from where soon came the strains of the song that had so agitated Paul. Again his heavy steps approached the door, and, as he entered the room, Regina said to herself, "He has grown ten years older since that evening last summer, and he is ripe for my purpose now."