"I do not think she does," but as she spoke Grace felt very uncomfortable. She once again entreated Mr. Stevens to speak to Mrs. Dorriman, and as Paul got into the carriage again she could only trust that her persuasion had been successful.
No one, however, can imagine how this dread of discovery weighed upon her. Each time Paul returned, when he had been out alone, her expression, when he appeared, was anxiety—did he know? had anything been said to make him suspicious?
"I am beginning to be afraid you are tired of me," he said one day; "when I come home now you never look the least pleased to see me."
"I am glad, dear; please do not take fancies into your head."
"Well, I wish you showed it a little more; I am longing to get you away—you are much less energetic than you were a little while ago. The way you stick to my mother is very unlike you. I am awfully fond of her, and all that, but I like having you a bit by myself, and her too for that matter."
Grace turned red and white by turns. She knew that she was suffering from irritability produced by anxiety. She was essentially one who could stand neither fatigue of body nor anxiety of mind.
"What can you have to say to your mother that I may not hear?" she asked, with a certain sharpness of tone that surprised him. He looked at her attentively, and that seemed to displease her still more. To his unbounded astonishment she burst out crying, and cried with a sort of miserable, helpless vehemence, that was infinitely distressing to him.
"My darling! can you not tell me what is wrong?" he said, "for there is something wrong, you are not yourself. Who can you turn to if you have any worry or distress so well as to your husband? Have you no confidence in me?"
"Don't," she sobbed, "you only make me worse!"
He was deeply wounded, not so much by her words as by the way she shrank from him.