of the fruit; she will be complete; she will be fed
and I am to starve. What is coming to me? I do not know myself. I feel
that I could grudge her these favours, that I _do_ grudge them to her.
I am sick at heart.

And she--even she has proved false to me. I know that she meets this
man. Adrian too knows it, and more of him than he will tell me; and he
approves. I am treated like a child. The situation is strange upon
every side; Madeleine loving a plebeian--a sailor, not a king's
officer--stooping to stolen interviews! Adrian the punctilious, in
whose charge Tanty solemnly left her, pretending ignorance, virtually
condoning my sister's behaviour! For though he has distinctly refused
to enlighten me or help me to enlighten myself, he could not, upon my
taxing him with it, deny that he was in possession of facts ignored by
me.

Then there is Rupert paying now open court to this sly damsel--for the
sake of her beautiful eyes, or for the beautiful eyes of her casket?
And last and strangest, the incongruous friendship struck up this week
between her and that most irritating of melancholy fools, Sophia. The
latter bursts with suppressed importance, she launches glances of
understanding at my sister; sighs, smiles (when Rupert's eye is not on
her), starts mysteriously. One would say that Madeleine had made a
confidant of her--only that it would be too silly. What? Make a
confidant of that funereal mute and deny _me_ the truth! If I had the
spirit for it I would set myself to discovering this grand mystery;
and then let them beware! They would have none of Molly as a friend:
perhaps she will yet prove one too many upon the other side.

If I have grown bitter to Madeleine, it is her own fault; I would have
been as true as steel to her if she had but trusted me. Now and
again, when a hard word and look escape me, she gives me a great
surprised, reproachful glance, as of a petted child that has been
hurt; but mostly she scarcely seems to notice the change in
me--Moonlike in dreamy serenity she sails along, wrapt in her own
thoughts, and troubles no more over Molly's breaking her heart than
over Rupert's determined suit. To me when she remembers me, she gives
the old caresses, the old loving words; to him smiles and pretty
courtesy. Oh, she keeps her secret well! But I came upon her in the
woods alone, last Friday, fresh, no doubt, from her lover's arms;
tremulous, smiling, yet tearful, with face dyed rose. And when to my
last