I naturally looked now for a family likeness between the two faces. There was no family likeness; on the contrary, they were as unlike each other in form and expression as faces could be. Was she his sister, after all? I looked at her hands, as represented in the portrait. Her right hand was clasped by Eustace; her left hand lay on her lap. On the third finger, distinctly visible, there was a wedding-ring. Were any of my husband’s sisters married? I had myself asked him the question when he mentioned them to me, and I perfectly remembered that he had replied in the negative.
Was it possible that my first jealous instinct had led me to the right conclusion after all? If it had, what did the association of the three initial letters mean? What did the wedding-ring mean? Good Heavens! was I looking at the portrait of a rival in my husband’s affections—and was that rival his Wife?
I threw the photograph from me with a cry of horror. For one terrible moment I felt as if my reason was giving way. I don’t know what would have happened, or what I should have done next, if my love for Eustace had not taken the uppermost place among the contending emotions that tortured me. That faithful love steadied my brain. That faithful love roused the reviving influences of my better and nobler sense. Was the man whom I had enshrined in my heart of hearts capable of such base wickedness as the bare idea of his marriage to another woman implied? No! Mine was the baseness, mine the wickedness, in having even for a moment thought it of him!
I picked up the detestable photograph from the floor, and put it back in the book. I hastily closed the cupboard door, fetched the library ladder, and set it against the book-case. My one idea now was the idea of taking refuge in employment of any sort from my own thoughts. I felt the hateful suspicion that had degraded me coming back again in spite of my efforts to repel it. The books! the books! my only hope was to absorb myself, body and soul, in the books.
I had one foot on the ladder, when I heard the door of the room open—the door which communicated with the hall.
I looked around, expecting to see the Major. I saw instead the Major’s future prima donna standing just inside the door, with her round eyes steadily fixed on me.
“I can stand a good deal,” the girl began, coolly, “but I can’t stand this any longer?”
“What is it that you can’t stand any longer?” I asked.
“If you have been here a minute, you have been here two good hours,” she went on. “All by yourself in the Major’s study. I am of a jealous disposition—I am. And I want to know what it means.” She advanced a few steps nearer to me, with a heightening color and a threatening look. “Is he going to bring you out on the stage?” she asked, sharply.
“Certainly not.”