“Ay! ay!” I muttered, turning away.
She caught my hand.
“Do not go—do not leave me, and with such a look! Oh! husband, I may not live long. I feel that I have had a very narrow escape within these few days past. Do not kill me with cruel looks; with words, that, if cruel from you, would sooner kill than the knife in savage hands. Oh! tell me in what have I offended? What is it you think? For what am I to blame? What do you doubt—suspect?”
These questions were asked hurriedly, apprehensively, with a look of vague terror, her cheeks whitening as she spoke, her eyes darting wildly into mine, and her lips remaining parted after she had spoken.
“Ah!” I exclaimed, keenly watching her. Her glance sank beneath my gaze. I put my hand upon her own.
“What do I suspect I What should I suspect? Ha!”—Here I arrested myself. My ardent anxiety to know the truth led me to forget my caution; to exhibit a degree of eagerness, which might have proved that I did suspect and seriously. To exhibit the possession of jealousy was to place her upon her guard—such was the suggestion of that miserable policy by which I had been governed—and defeat the impression of that feeling of perfect security and indifference, which I had been so long striving to awaken. I recovered myself, with this thought, in season to re-assume this appearance.
“Your mind still wanders, Julia. What should I suspect? and whom? You do not suppose me to be of a suspicious nature, do you?”
“Not altogether—not always—no! But, of course, there is nothing to suspect. I do not know what I say. I believe I do wander.”
This reply was also spoken hurriedly, but with an obvious effort at composure. The eagerness with which she seized upon my words, insisting upon the absence of any cause of suspicion, and ascribing to her late delirium, the tacit admissions which her look and language had made, I need not say, contributed to strengthen my suspicions, and to confirm all the previous conjectures of my jealous spirit.
“Be quiet,” I said with an air of sang froid. “Do not worry yourself in this manner. You need sleep. Try for it, while I leave you.”