"Just so. I went to enquire after her."
"Well, I suppose it was you, then: I asked William about it, but he is as close as wax when he likes, and professed not to know what I was talking of. One thing is clear, that he could not have recognised you, Sir Karl. It was nearly dark, I believe. That little baby at the Maze is very delicate."
"By the way, Miss Diana, talking of such people, what does Mr. Moore think of poor Whittle's widow?" asked Sir Karl. "My wife says she is very ill."
The conversation was turned--Sir Karl's object in speaking. Miss Diana talked of Mrs. Whittle, and then went on to other subjects.
But it will be readily seen how cruelly these and similar incidents tried Lucy Andinnian. Had an angel come down from heaven to assure her the gentleman in evening attire was not Sir Karl, she would have refused to believe it. Nay, he had, so to say, confessed it--in her presence.
Miss Diana departed. Karl went out with her, and did not come in again. Lucy knew he had gone to the Maze. She went up to her room, and stood there in the dark watching for his return. It was nearly ten when he appeared: he had been spending all that time with her rival!
Even so. Sir Karl had spent it at the Maze. As the autumn evenings grew darker, he could go over earlier and come away earlier. Lucy wondered whether this state of things was to last for ever, and how much longer she could continue to bear and make no sign.
To her weary bed again went she. To the anguish of her outraged heart; to her miserable, sleepless hours, and her still more miserable dreams. Jealousy as utterly mistaken and foundationless has too often inflicted torment lively as this.
It is a "green-eyed monster, which doth make the food it feeds on."