t. It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if his
presence were a blight and his favour a misfortune. Was the fault in
himself, or only in the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? This
mistrust was now the clearest result of their short married life; a gulf
had opened between them over which they looked at each other with eyes
that were on either side a declaration of the deception suffered. It
was a strange opposition, of the like of which she had never dreamed--an
opposition in which the vital principle of the one was a thing of
contempt to the other. It was not her fault--she had practised no
deception; she had only admired and believed. She had taken all the
first steps in the purest confidence, and then she had suddenly found
the infinite vista of a multiplied life to be a dark, narrow alley
with a dead wall at the end. Instead of leading to the high places of
happiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one
could look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge and
choose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward, into realms of
restriction and depression where the sound of other lives, easier
and freer, was heard as from above, and where it served to deepen the
feeling of failure. It was her deep distrust of her husband--this was
what darkened the world. That is a sentiment easily indicated, but not
so easily explained, and so composite in its character that much time
and still more suffering had been needed to bring it to its actual
perfection. Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition; it was
not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of
speculation, of response to every pressure. She flattered herself
that she had kept her failing faith to herself, however,--that no one
suspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when she
thought he enjoyed it. It had come gradually--it was not till the first
year of their life together, so admirably intimate at first, had closed
that she had taken the alarm. Then the shadows had begun to gather; it
was as if Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lights
out one by one. The dusk at first was vague and thin, and she could
still see her way in it. But it steadily deepened, and if now and again
it had occasionally lifted there were certain corners of her prospect
that were impenetrably black. These shadows were not an emanation from
her own mind: she was very sure of that; she h