The tears came into Griselda’s beautiful eyes.
“My sweet love,” said he, “how can you let such a trifle affect you so much?”
“Nothing is a trifle to me which concerns those I love,” said Griselda.—Her husband kissed away the pearly drops which rolled over her vermeil-tinctured cheeks. “My love,” said he, “this is having too much sensibility.”
“Yes, I own I have too much sensibility,” said she, “too much—a great deal too much, for my own happiness.—Nothing ever can be a trifle to me which marks the decline of the affection of those who are most dear to me.”
The tenderest protestations of undiminished and unalterable affection could not for some time reassure this timid sensibility: but at length the lady suffered herself to be comforted, and with a languid smile said, that she hoped she was mistaken—that her fears were perhaps unreasonable—that she prayed to Heaven they might in future prove groundless.
A few weeks afterwards her husband unexpectedly met with Mr. Granby, a friend, of whose company he was particularly fond: he invited him home to dinner, and was talking over past times in all the gaiety and innocence of his heart, when suddenly his wife rose and left the room.—As her absence appeared to him long, and as he had begged his friend to postpone an excellent story till her return, he went to her apartment and called “Griselda!—Griselda, my love!”—No Griselda answered.—He searched for her in vain in every room in the house: at last, in an alcove in the garden, he found the fair dissolved in tears.
“Good Heavens! my dear Griselda, what can be the matter?”
A melancholy, not to say sullen, silence was maintained by his dear Griselda, till this question had been reiterated in all the possible tones of fond solicitude and alarm: at last, in broken sentences, she replied that she saw he did not love her—never had loved her; that she had now but too much reason to be convinced that all her fears were real, not imaginary; that her presentiments, alas! never deceived her; that she was the most miserable woman on earth.
Her husband’s unfeigned astonishment she seemed to consider as an aggravation of her woes, and it was an additional insult to plead ignorance of his offence.
If he did not understand her feelings, it was impossible, it was needless, to explain them. He must have lost all sympathy with her, all tenderness for her, if he did not know what had passed in her mind.