habit to lead them on to this avowal; for I knew what comparisons
they must draw between us; and having a rankling envy in my heart,
I sought to justify it to myself.

We had married two sisters. This additional tie between us, as it
may appear to some, only estranged us the more. His wife knew me
well. I never struggled with any secret jealousy or gall when she
was present but that woman knew it as well as I did. I never
raised my eyes at such times but I found hers fixed upon me; I
never bent them on the ground or looked another way but I felt that
she overlooked me always. It was an inexpressible relief to me
when we quarrelled, and a greater relief still when I heard abroad
that she was dead. It seems to me now as if some strange and
terrible foreshadowing of what has happened since must have hung
over us then. I was afraid of her; she haunted me; her fixed and
steady look comes back upon me now, like the memory of a dark
dream, and makes my blood run cold.

She died shortly after giving birth to a child - a boy. When my
brother knew that all hope of his own recovery was past, he called
my wife to his bedside, and confided this orphan, a child of four
years old, to her protection. He bequeathed to him all the
property he had, and willed that, in case of his child's death, it
should pass to my wife, as the only acknowledgment he could make
her for her care and love. He exchanged a few brotherly words with
me, deploring our long separation; and being exhausted, fell into a
slumber, from which he never awoke.

We had no children; and as there had been a strong affection
between the sisters, and my wife had almost supplied the place of a