lived together for so many
years, enjoying their relationship as much as is usual with married
folks, and keeping up an outward show that caused all to believe that,
with them, matrimony was a great success. And so it was, if one could
only overlook the fact that beneath this semblance of happiness there
smouldered a fire, which might at any time be aroused by a chance
spark, and grow into a blaze which would consume the whole fabric of
their existence. The embers of this fire were, jealousy and suspicion
on the side of the woman, and secretiveness in the man. Madame Medjora
had never forgotten that her inquiry as to whether her husband had had
a child by his previous wife had been unanswed; nor had she quite
abandoned the hope of satisfying herself upon the subject.

During the later years, she had much regretted to see what she
considered one source of power slowly slipping away from her. In the
beginning, her husband had not hesitated to call upon her for funds
with which to advance his interests, but as the years passed his own
resources had increased so rapidly, that he was now entirely
independent of her, and, indeed, owing to shrinkages in the values of
her property, he was really richer than she. The house in which they
lived had been rebuilt by him, and by degrees he had paid off the
mortgages out of his earnings, until he owned it freed from debt.

So, as she sat in her room and meditated upon the fact that she had
said that Leon should not be admitted to the house, she remembered
with a feeling of bitterness that she was the mistress in the house
only by right of wifehood, and not because she held any privileges
arising from proprietorship.

She had been anticipating pleasure from the reunion with her husband,
and now, because of "that country boy," she had received only unkind
words from the Doctor. Naturally, she exonerated herself from all
fault, and, because of her love, she would not blame her husband.
There was no other course but to attribute the whole trouble to Leon.
But for him, she argued, all would have been pleasant, therefore he
must bear the brunt of her resentment. Already she began to hate him.
To hate him as only a tropical temperament can hate. She was in this
mood when the Doctor entered. At once she arose to greet him. In an
instant she hid within the depths of her bosom all emotions save those
of love, and any one, other than the Doctor, would have believed that
she harbored no unplea