as astonished;
but she treated the matter very coolly, or appeared to do so. When I
asked for an explanation, she avoided my eye, and turned the matter off;
and when I pressed her on the subject, she said, `Well, it is no use my
entering into explanations now; you'll find it all right.' I was
greatly disturbed, for there was something in her manner that showed me
she was ill at ease, though she endeavoured to wear a nonchalant air.
There was a wild light, too, in her eyes, which distressed and almost
alarmed me, and a suspicion came over me which almost made me faint.
She left the breakfast table abruptly, and I saw no more of her till
luncheon time; but when I went to my library, I found a packet on my
table which I had not noticed there before. I opened it; it was full of
unpaid bills, all made out to my wife in her maiden name, and most,
indeed nearly all of them, for articles unsuited for female use. A
horrible suspicion flashed across my mind. Could it possibly be that
these were her brother's debts: that he had got these articles in her
name, and had had the bills sent in to her? And could it be that
brother and sister had been in league together, and that he with all his
assumption of openness and candour and large-heartedness, had entrapped
me into this marriage that I might liquidate the debts of an abandoned
and reckless profligate? And could it be, farther, (madden ing
thought!) that the _whole_ extravagance was not his, and that numerous
unpaid accounts for wine and spirits were, partly, for what she had
taken as well as her brother? Then I thought of the scene in the
garden, of the wild laughter, of her sudden disappearance, of the signs
of drinking in the summer-house. Oh! My heart turned sick; was I
tricked, deceived, ruined in my peace for ever? I paced up and down my
library, more like a lunatic than a sane man. Luncheon time came: we
met: she threw herself into my arms, and wept and laughed and implored;
but I felt that a drunkard was embracing me, and I flung her from me,
and rushed out of the house. O misery! Whither should I go, what
should I do? It was all too true: her brother was the basest of men:
she did love _him_, I believe, it was the only unselfish thing about
her. Well, I had to go back home; _home_! Vilest of names to me then!
`home, _bitter_ home!' And yet I loved that poor guilty, fallen
creature. There was a terrible light in her eyes as we sat opposite one
another at