h when my thoughts dwelt long on it?

I was beginning to doubt Margaret!

What it was that I doubted I knew not. It was not her love, or her
honour, or her truth, or her kindness, or her zeal. What then was it?

It was herself!

Margaret was changing! At times during the past few days I had hardly
known her as the same girl whom I had met at the picnic, and whose
vigils I had shared in the sick-room of her father. Then, even in her
moments of greatest sorrow or fright or anxiety, she was all life and
thought and keenness. Now she was generally distraite, and at times in
a sort of negative condition as though her mind--her very being--was
not present. At such moments she would have full possession of
observation and memory. She would know and remember all that was going
on, and had gone on around her; but her coming back to her old self had
to me something the sensation of a new person coming into the room. Up
to the time of leaving London I had been content whenever she was
present. I had over me that delicious sense of security which comes
with the consciousness that love is mutual. But now doubt had taken
its place. I never knew whether the personality present was my
Margaret--the old Margaret whom I had loved at the first glance--or the
other new Margaret, whom I hardly understood, and whose intellectual
aloofness made an impalpable barrier between us. Sometimes she would
become, as it were, awake all at once. At such times, though she would
say to me sweet and pleasant things which she had often said before,
she would seem most unlike herself. It was almost as if she was
speaking parrot-like or at dictation of one who could read words or
acts, but not thoughts. After one or two experiences of this kind, my
own doubting began to make a barrier; for I could not speak with the
ease and freedom which were usual to me. And so hour by hour we
drifted apart. Were it not for the few odd moments when the old
Margaret was back with me full of her charm I do not know what would
have happened. As it was, each such moment gave me a fresh start and
kept my love from changing.

I would have given the world for a confidant; but this was impossible.
How could I speak a doubt of Margaret to anyone, even her father! How
could I speak a doubt to Margaret, when Margaret herself was the theme!
I could only endure--and hope. And of the two the endurance was the
lesser pain.

I think that Margaret must have at times