e night, Sir Murray Gernon knew of the encounter,
and fed with it the smouldering fire of his jealousy.

He had not stooped to the meanness before, but now, telling himself it
was his duty, he had her watched, finding in one of the servants a
willing tool; but his news was always of the most meagre; and growing
daily more morose, Sir Murray now gave way to a fresh belief--he felt
sure that his wife corresponded with some one at the Hall. At one time
he made up his mind to leave the neighbourhood--to return to Como; but
he stubbornly decided to the contrary, thinking that it would turn
attention to his family affairs. Then he decided to see "that unhappy
woman at the Hall," as he termed her, and to enlighten her upon the
state of affaire, while, if possible, he would secure her as his
coadjutor. He even went so far, during one of Norton's absences, as to
ride over; but he repented, and returned home more and more disposed for
solitude and misery; for he had almost grown to love his sense of
injury, pitying himself, and feeling that he was a martyr, seeing
nothing but the past, believing nothing but the evidence of his own
eyes, and resolutely shutting himself out from the happiness that might
have been his portion.

Suspicion is a ravenous monster, devouring all before it. Matters the
most ill-suited often become its food, as the simplest acts of the
suspected are magnified into guilt. The feeling grew stronger and
stronger every hour that he was being cleverly tricked; but though he
waited day after day for the coming enlightenment, it came not.

It must be, then, by night that some arrangement or correspondence was
made; and his brow grew blacker, and his head sank upon his breast, as
he muttered the thought.

The months had glided by rapidly, when, one night, after a long, gloomy
day, he retired to his bedroom--a different chamber to that he had
before used--but not to sleep; for, throwing himself upon a low couch,
he lay thinking of his present life, and asking his heart what was to be
the end?--whether it was possible that a reconciliation would ever take
place, and something, if not of happiness, of quiet esteem and
smoothness of life-course return?

He could not conceive it possible; it seemed to him then that death
alone could be the termination of such a state of being.

It was a gloomy introduction to his thoughts, that word death, and he
frowned more heavily as it oppressed him. Should he die himse