very hard; and once more she experienced the wild and vain regret that
she had ever invited this too-alluring stranger to become an inmate of
her house.

Before now, when they had been together, Lyon Berners had been
accustomed to think of, smile on, talk to, only her, his wife! Now his
thoughts, smiles, conversation were all divided with another!--Oh no! Oh
no! _not divided_, but almost entirely absorbed by that other! At least
so suspected the jealous wife.

"Is it possible, oh! is it possible that he loves me less than formerly?
that he loves me not at all? that he loves this stranger?" thought
Sybil, as she watched her husband and her friend, entirely taken up with
each other, and entirely oblivious of her! And at this thought a
sensation of sickness and faintness came over her, and she saved herself
from falling, only by a great effort of self-command. They, talking to
each other, smiling at each other, enjoying each other's exclusive
attention, did not observe her emotion, although almost any casual
spectator must have seen it in the deadly pallor of her face.

In all this there was little to arouse her jealousy; and perhaps there
was nothing at all. Her heart pang may have come of a false fear, or a
true one; who could then tell?

For my own part, looking towards this situation of affairs through the
light of after knowledge, I think that her fears were, even then,
well-founded; that even then it was a true instinct which warned her
that her adored husband, he to whom her whole heart, soul, and spirit
were entirely given, he for whom only she "lived and moved and had her
being," he was becoming fascinated, for the time being at least, by
this beautiful stranger, who was evidently also flattered by his
attentions. And this in the very honeymoon of the bride to whom he owed
so much!

And yet indeed, I say, still speaking in the light of after knowledge,
that at this time he was equally unconscious of his wife's jealousy, or
of any wrong-doing on his own part, calculated to arouse it. Had Lyon
Berners suspected that his attentions to their fair guest gave such deep
pain to his high-spirited wife, he would at least have modified them to
retain her confidence. But he suspected nothing. Sybil revealed nothing;
her pride was even greater than her jealousy; for this last daughter of
the House of Berners inherited all the pride of all her line. At this
time, this pride quite enabled her to keep her pain to herself.