“Oh! thanks—a thousand thanks,” he replies; “no danger of any fastidiousness of mine standing in the way of my gratitude and content.”
And so it is arranged; for the pecuniary help which the stranger offers is not unwelcome to John Thorndyke in the growing needs of his family.
This stranger, Martin Vanderlyn, is a handsome man of thirty-five years, with the kind of beauty and manner which takes captive the fancy of many women, yet which is really satanic; hard and cruel gray eyes, but capable of a soft, imploring expression; dark hair; pale, clear skin; and tall, well-knit figure; a voice agreeable in most of its cadences, but with a treacherous note occasionally grating on the ear, though corrected quickly, as if he himself had felt it; inherent strength, but not purity of purpose; persistent patience in executing his own selfish and sensual will; apparent gentleness, and refinement, and culture, made subservient to his own desires; poetry, and flattery, and irreligion, and sophistry always on his lips and in his eyes—such is the patient which it becomes Agnes Thorndyke’s loving task to nurse day after day. In this dangerous companionship, this hungry heart finds solace. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” should be her constant prayer now. How can she help seeing his admiring eyes follow her, and look into her own? How can she prevent the dangerous familiarity sanctioned by their relative positions of nurse and patient? Well he knows how to increase the ever-ready sympathy for his sufferings. Soon and easily he reads the disappointment in her life, and detects the cause. Is there no scruple of conscience, no emotion of gratitude, to stay him in his bad designs, framed and nursed on his sick-bed during the very time she so tenderly cares for him? Not one. Day by day he weaves the net and casts the toils about her so surely that her whole manner towards her husband has changed to a querulousness and impatience which speedily provoke a response of the same nature; and discord and hatred sit in the place where once reigned duty and peace.
John Thorndyke, although of a heavy, is also of a spiteful and jealous, temperament. He has been, in his dull way, proud of his wife, and selfishly pleased at the comfort she has brought him. It has not occurred to him to try to brighten her life. Indeed, he has not known that her life needed any cheer. He thinks that she is his, and all her duty is to him, and so long as he knows himself faithful to her, and gives her all the pecuniary support he can command as a mechanic, it does not occur to him that he fails in any respect. He has never even questioned himself on that point. No misgivings apparently disturb his sluggish conscience. In this, he differs widely from his wife. She has sharply questioned her conscience, being perhaps dimly aware of the weak spot in the citadel, of the serpent coiled in the shadow. But as she has never before given the slightest cause for his jealousy, she has not been even suspicious of how terrible a sway it can have over him. Even now she does not read the signs aright, being blinded by her own new infatuation.
In the meantime, Martin Vanderlyn is convalescent, and making himself more and more interesting to her. He addresses her always with so much respect and courtesy that it is a continual flattery to her; for this woman has her vanity under all her severe simplicity of garb and mien, and to be recognized as being superior to her position in life is the strongest—or weakest—desire of her heart. To so regard her is to flatter her more surely and insidiously than to praise her beauty or her grace.
Sitting one day over her sewing, she is suddenly surprised by the remark from Vanderlyn, who has been silently studying her: “Mrs. Thorndyke, you are not happy.”
She looks up with a sort of frightened expression, as if detected in some crime. After a moment of deprecating, silent supplication in her eyes, she responds with the commonplace question, quite at variance with her look and manner:
“Why do you think so?”
“Because,” he says, “I am a physiognomist, and I have been studying your face until I can read it as I would a book; and a more eloquent book could not be found.”
The last words are spoken in a softened voice which makes her blush and keep her eyes steadily averted. She has not been used to compliments before his advent, and cannot toss them off or return them lightly. She feels guilty now at liking this so well. Looking steadily at her meanwhile, and pleased at her embarrassment, he says, “I have read in this book that your life is not a happy one, and I am not surprised at reading it. Perhaps my own past experience has made me quicker at translating the language of your book; for, Mrs. Thorndyke, I have not been happy myself, and I think your discontent springs from a similar source.”