it less
infatuated, how many warnings you might have discovered, which, in
spite of her duplicity and my caution, would then have shown themselves
plainly enough to put you on your guard! Those abrupt changes in her
manner, those alternate fits of peevish silence and capricious gaiety,
which sometimes displayed themselves even in your presence, had every
one of them their meaning--though you could not discern it. Sometimes,
they meant fear of discovery, sometimes fear of me: now, they might be
traced back to hidden contempt; now, to passions swelling under fancied
outrage; now, to secret remembrance of disclosures I had just made, or
eager anticipation of disclosures I had yet to reveal. There were times
at which every step of the way along which I was advancing was marked,
faintly yet significantly, in her manner and her speech, could you only
have interpreted them aright. My first renewal of my old influence over
her, my first words that degraded you in her eyes, my first successful
pleading of my own cause against yours, my first appeal to those
passions in her which I knew how to move, my first proposal to her
of the whole scheme which I had matured in solitude, in the foreign
country, by the banks of the great river--all these separate and gradual
advances on my part towards the end which I was vowed to achieve, were
outwardly shadowed forth in her, consummate as were her capacities for
deceit, and consummately as she learnt to use them against you.

"Do you remember noticing, on your return from the country, how ill
Margaret looked, and how ill I looked? We had some interviews during
your absence, at which I spoke such words to her as would have left
their mark on the face of a Jezebel, or a Messalina. Have you forgotten
how often, during the latter days of your year of expectation, I
abruptly left the room after you had called me in to bear you company
in your evening readings? My pretext was sudden illness; and illness it
was, but not of the body. As the time approached, I felt less and less
secure of my own caution and patience. With you, indeed, I might still
have considered myself safe: it was the presence of Mrs. Sherwin that
drove me from the room. Under that woman's fatal eye I shrank, when the
last days drew near--I, who had defied her detection, and stood firmly
on my guard against her sleepless, silent, deadly vigilance, for months
and months--gave way as the end approached! I knew that she had once
or