s avidness of the male in love, burned as a fed fire
to see her. He was jealous of the little innocent walks she took with
boys she knew. The fact that it was necessary for her to be away from
him was a great deprivation. The fact that he was married to Angela was
a horrible disaster. He would look at Angela, when she was with him,
preventing him from his freedom in love, with almost calculated hate in
his eyes. Why had he married her? As for Frieda, when she was near, and
he could not draw near her, his eyes followed her movements with a
yearning, devouring glance. He was fairly beside himself with anguish
under the spell of her beauty. Frieda had no notion of the consuming
flame she had engendered.

It was a simple thing to walk home with her from the post-office--quite
accidentally on several occasions. It was a fortuitous thing that Anna
Roth should invite Angela and himself, as well as his father and mother,
to her house to dinner. On one occasion when Frieda was visiting at the
Witla homestead, Angela thought Frieda stepped away from Eugene in a
curiously disturbed manner when she came into the parlor. She was not
sure. Frieda hung round him in a good-natured way most of the time when
various members of the family were present. She wondered if by any
chance he was making love to her, but she could not prove it. She tried
to watch them from then on, but Eugene was so subtle, Frieda so
circumspect, that she never did obtain any direct testimony.
Nevertheless, before they left Alexandria there was a weeping scene over
this, hysterical, tempestuous, in which she accused him of making love
to Frieda, he denying it stoutly.

"If it wasn't for your relatives' sake," she declared, "I would accuse
her to her face, here before your eyes. She couldn't dare deny it."

"Oh, you're crazy," said Eugene. "You're the most suspicious woman I
ever knew. Good Lord! Can't I look at a woman any more? This little
girl! Can't I even be nice to her?"

"Nice to her? Nice to her? I know how you're nice to her. I can see! I
can feel! Oh, God! Why can't you give me a faithful husband!"

"Oh, cut it out!" demanded Eugene defiantly. "You're always watching. I
can't turn around but you have your eye on me. I can tell. Well, you go
ahead and watch. That's all the good it will do you. I'll give you some
real reason for watching one of these days. You make me tired!"

"Oh, hear how he talks to me," moaned Angela, "and we're only married
one y