which grow but the sorer and fiercer as days and years roll on; of this
kind, perhaps, were the stern and bitter feelings which now darkened the
face of Marston with an almost perpetual gloom. His habits became even
more unsocial than before. The society of his son he no longer seemed to
enjoy. Long and solitary rambles in his wild and extensive demesne
consumed the listless hours or his waking existence; and when the
weather prevented this, he shut himself up, upon pretence of business,
in his study.

He had not, since the occasion we have already mentioned, referred to the
intended departure of Mademoiselle de Barras. Truth to say, his feelings
with respect to that young lady were of a conflicting and mysterious
kind; and as often as his dark thoughts wandered to her (which, indeed,
was frequently enough), his muttered exclamation seemed to imply some
painful and horrible suspicions respecting her.

"Yes," he would mutter, "I thought I heard your light foot upon the
lobby, on that accursed night. Fancy! Well, it may have been, but
assuredly a strange fancy. I cannot comprehend that woman. She baffles my
scrutiny. I have looked into her face with an eye she might well
understand, were it indeed as I sometimes suspect, and she has been calm
and unmoved. I have watched and studied her; still--doubt, doubt, hideous
doubt!--is she what she seems, or--a tigress?"

Mrs. Marston, on the other hand, procrastinated from day to day the
painful task of announcing to Mademoiselle de Barras the stern message
with which she had been charged by her husband. And thus several weeks
had passed, and she began to think that his silence upon the subject,
notwithstanding his seeing the young French lady at breakfast every
morning, amounted to a kind of tacit intimation that the sentence of