At Gray Forest Marston and the partner of his guilt continued to live.
The old servants were all gradually dismissed, and new ones hired by
Mademoiselle de Barras. There they dwelt, shunned by everybody, in a
stricter and more desolate seclusion than ever. The novelty of the
unrestraint and licence of their new mode of life speedily passed away,
and with it the excited and guilty sense of relief which had for a time
produced a false and hollow gaiety. The sense of security prompted in
mademoiselle a hundred indulgences which, in her former precarious
position, she would not have dreamed of. Outbreaks of temper, sharp and
sometimes violent, began to manifest themselves on her part, and renewed
disappointment and blacker remorse to darken the soul of Marston himself.
Often, in the dead of the night, the servants would overhear their bitter
and fierce altercations ringing through the melancholy mansion, and
often the reckless use of terrible and mysterious epithets of crime.
Their quarrels increased in violence and in frequency, and, before two
years had passed, feelings of bitterness, hatred, and dread, alone seemed
to subsist between them. Yet upon Marston she continued to exercise a
powerful and mysterious influence. There was a dogged, apathetic
submission on his part, and a growing insolence on hers, constantly more
and more strikingly visible. Neglect, disorder, and decay, too, were more
than ever apparent in the dreary air of the place.

Doctor Danvers, save by rumor and conjecture, knew nothing of Marston
and his abandoned companion. He had, more than once, felt a strong
disposition to visit Gray Forest, and expostulate, face to face, with its
guilty proprietor. This idea, however, he had, upon consideration,
dismissed; not on account of any shrinking from the possible repulses and
affronts to which the attempt might subject him, but from a thorough
conviction that the endeavor would be utterly fruitless for good, while
it might, very obviously, expose him to painful misinterpretation and