ur out her
tribulations, her secret tears confessed. But throughout all this
change, though it became each day more strongly marked, she had tried to
cheat herself into the belief that the romantic warmth of a first
attachment could not in any case be expected to last for many
years--that in meeting indifference she was merely experiencing a common
lot--that beneath his coolness there still lurked the old affection, as
the lava will flow beneath the hardened crust--and that, if she were
indeed losing the appearance of his love, it was merely because the
claims of the court, the exigencies of the social world, or the demands
of ambition had too much usurped his attention.

But now a thousand hitherto unregarded circumstances began to creep into
her mind as so many evidences that his affection seemed passing from
her; not simply because the claims of duty or ambition were stifling in
his heart all power to love, but because he had become secretly attached
elsewhere. The interested gaze with which he followed the motions of the
Greek girl--the solicitude which he seemed to feel that in all things
she should be treated, not only tenderly, but more luxuriously than ever
fell to the lot of even the highest class of slaves--his newly acquired
habit of strolling into the room and throwing himself down where he
could lazily watch her--all these, and other circumstances, though
individually trivial, could not fail, when united, to give cogency to
the one terrible conviction of secret wrong. Whether Leta herself had
any perception of all this, who could yet tell? It might be that she was
clothed in innocent unconsciousness of her master's admiration, or that,
by the force of native purity, she had resisted his advances. And, on
the other hand, it might be that not merely now, but long before she had
been brought into the house, there had been a secret understanding
between the two; and that, with undeviating and unrelenting cunning, she
was still ever drawing him still closer within the folds of her
fascinations. Looking upon her, and noting the humble and almost
timorous air with which she moved about, as though seeking kindness and
protection, and the eloquence of mute appeal for sympathy which lay half
hidden in her dark eyes beneath the scarcely raised lids, and rested in
her trembling lips, who could doubt her? But marking the haughtiness of
pride with which at times she drew up her slight figure to its utmost
height, the ray