He bade me good-night, and kissed me two or three times with unusual warmth and tenderness. Jealousy is all quickness of spirit and of sense. I reluctantly endured caresses which I knew not to be mine; if I dared, I would have repelled those overflowings of a heart in whose joy and delight I had not the faintest part. Sweeter, dearer to me was the quiet, careless kiss I was accustomed to get, than all this tenderness springing from love to another. I was glad when Cornelius released me from his embrace; glad to leave him; glad to go upstairs and be wretched in liberty.
Never since Sarah had told me that my father was going to marry Miss Murray, had I felt as I now felt. The grief I had passed through after his death was more mighty, but it did not, like this, attack the existence of love and sting it in its very heart. Cornelius married to Miriam Russell, parted from us in the sweet communion of daily life, living with her in another home, painting his pictures for her and with her sitting to him or looking on,—alas! where should I be then?—was a thought so bitter, so tormenting, that it worked me into a fever, which fed eagerly on the jealousy that had given it birth.
Gone was the time when I stood next to Kate in his heart, and my loss was the gain of her whom I had heard him making the aim of his future, the hope and joy of his life. His love for her might not exclude calmer affections, but it cast them beneath at an immeasurable distance. I could not bear this. I was jealous by temper and by long habit. My father had accustomed me to the dangerous sweetness of being loved ardently and without a rival; and though I had not expected so much from Cornelius, yet slowly, patiently, by loving him to an excess, I had made him love me too; and now it was all labour lost: she had reached at once the heart towards which I had toiled so long, and won without effort the exclusive affection it was hard not to win, but utter misery to see bestowed on another.
The manner of Kate on the following morning showed me she knew nothing; breakfast was scarcely over when she rather solemnly said to her brother—
"Cornelius, what did you do to that child whilst I was out yesterday?"
He stood by the fire-place, looking down at the glowing embers and smiling at his own thoughts; he woke from his reverie, shook his head, opened his eyes, and looked up astonished.
"I have done nothing to her, Kate," he replied, simply.
"She has been crying herself to sleep, though!"
I had, and I heard her with dismay; he gave me a keen look.
"Her nerves are weak," he suggested.