CHAPTER XIV.
JEALOUSY.
——"Trifles, light as air,
Are to the jealous confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ.—OTHELLO.
The next morning, Sibyl made her appearance in the sitting-room, pale, wan, and haggard, as though she had spent a sleepless night. But she appeared calm. Whatever course she had determined to pursue, seemed fully settled, and now she was calm; but it was like the calmness of a sleeping volcano, from which fire and flame, hurling destruction on all, might at any moment burst forth.
Answering gravely all Aunt Moll's anxious inquiries after her health, she seated herself at the breakfast-table, but touched nothing, save a cup of hot coffee. And, after this slight refreshment, she put on her hat and mantle and descended to the beach, where Lem, with the boat, was already awaiting her coming.
Seating herself, she wrapped her mantle closely around her, and fixing her eyes steadily on the dancing waves, the journey was performed in stern silence. Two hours brought them to N——, and, leaving her there, Lem set out for Westport to meet Drummond. Arrived there, he found that young gentleman, accompanied by Captain Campbell and a florid, bald-headed, old man, who proved to be the surgeon.
On their way, Willard explained to them how the wounded man and his wife had been saved from the wreck. And when they reached the island, Captain Campbell, unconscious that his sister was gone, hastened to the lodge, while Willard accompanied the surgeon to the cottage of Mrs. Tom.
As they entered, Christie, who in spite of her hidden grief, was busily employed as usual, looked hastily up, and turned, if possible, a shade paler than before.
Mrs. Courtney sat listlessly turning over the leaves of a novel, with a bored look on her pretty face; while opposite her, supported by pillows, on Mrs. Tom's wooden sofa, lay her wounded husband, whose eyes never for a moment, wandered from her face.
He was a man of thirty, at least, and would have been handsome but for his ghastly pallor and a certain sour, querulous, suspicious expression his face were. His complexion, naturally dark, had faded to a sickly yellow, looking almost white in contrast with his black hair, and thick, black whiskers and mustache. But it was the expression of his face that was particularly unprepossessing—in the thin, compressed lips, and watchful, cunning eyes you could read suspicion, distrust, and doubt. Two things would have struck you instantly, had you seen him sitting there—one, was his passionate love for his wife; the other, a slumbering fire of jealousy, that the faintest breath might have fanned into a never-dying flame.