"Well, if I must confess it, Sibyl, I was somewhat piqued that you should have gone away at all, and wished to let you know it by my absence. Perhaps it was very unreasonable on my part, but, loving you as devotedly as I did, I felt your abrupt absence far more than you are disposed to give me credit for."
"But, when alone, why were you ever talking of Christie? If she had not been continually in your thoughts, her name would not have been so frequently on your lips."
"Still jealous! Oh, Sibyl! hard to be convinced! I did not talk of her."
"You did; for Aunt Moil heard you."
"Saints and angels! was ever man in the same dilemma I am in? Even an old, half-deaf negress is believed sooner than I! Sibyl, I never talk to myself. Aunt Moll has seen me with this island girl—whom I wish to Heaven I had never met—and has fancied, perhaps, I spoke of her. Oh, Sibyl! Sibyl! by your dark, doubting look, I see you are unbelieving still. What shall I do, or say, to convince you?"
"Oh, I do not know—I do not know! Heaven direct me!" said Sibyl, pacing up and down. "I want to believe you, but I cannot get rid of those doubts. Willard, once our faith in those we love and trust is shaken, it is very hard to be renewed. There were truth and earnestness in that girl's eyes when she spoke—more, there was love for you. Whether or not you love, or have loved her, one thing is certain—you have taught her to love you."
"I have not taught her, Sibyl, nor am I to blame for her childish fancies. Even if she does care for me, which Is doubtful, it is a sisterly affection—nothing more."
"I am not blind, Willard. It was no sisterly affection read in those soft, pleading eyes; it was strong, unchanging, undying love. Oh, Willard! what if you are deceiving us both?"
"Sibyl, this is too much! I will not endure those doubts. You do not love me as you say you do, or you would have more faith in me. If you believe I could so forget my vows to you, my honor, my plighted faith, for this little artless child, then it were better we should forever part than live in doubt and jealousy. Do you think I could endure these constant recriminations, these stormy scenes, these violent outbursts of passion? Sibyl, it is beneath you to stoop to the mean, low passion of jealousy. I thought you had too much pride and self-respect to think any one, no matter how beautiful and enchanting, could surpass you. And certainly you pay a very poor compliment to my taste in supposing that I could fall in with an illiterate, uneducated child of fifteen, simply because she has a passably pretty face. Sibyl, you are surpassing beautiful and I have to-night seen gentlemen whom I am sure were fascinated by you, hovering the whole evening by your side, while you seemed to have eyes and ears for no one but them; yet it never once entered my mind to doubt you, or be in the slightest degree jealous."
"Yes, yes; I talked and laughed with them; but, oh! if you had known how every thought and feeling of my whole heart, and soul, and mind were with you all the time—if you had but dreamed of the insufferable agony at my heart all the while, you would have felt how little cause you could have had for jealousy."