CHAPTER I.
THE BREACH IS WIDENED.
A FORTNIGHT after Father Benwell’s discovery, Stella followed her husband one morning into his study. “Have you heard from Mr. Penrose?” she inquired.
“Yes. He will be here to-morrow.”
“To make a long visit?”
“I hope so. The longer the better.”
She looked at him with a mingled expression of surprise and reproach. “Why do you say that?” she asked. “Why do you want him so much—when you have got Me?”
Thus far, he had been sitting at his desk, resting his head on his hand, with his downcast eyes fixed on an open book. When she put her last question to him he suddenly looked up. Through the large window at his side the morning light fell on his face. The haggard look of suffering, which Stella remembered on the day when they met on the deck of the steamboat, was again visible—not softened and chastened now by the touching resignation of the bygone time, but intensified by the dogged and despairing endurance of a man weary of himself and his life. Her heart ached for him. She said, softly: “I don’t mean to reproach you.”
“Are you jealous of Penrose?” he asked, with a bitter smile.
She desperately told him the truth. “I am afraid of Penrose,” she answered.