e first time in
his long married life, that it was awkward for a man to have to account
for his presence in any particular spot at any particular time. Hetty
betrayed no annoyance or incredulity: she felt none. She was too
sensible and reasonable a woman to have felt either, even if it had been
simply a change of purpose on the doctor's own part which had brought
him to Springton. The thing which had lent the shade of constraint to
Hetty's voice, and which lay like an icy mountain on Hetty's heart, was
the look which she had seen on his face, the tone which she had heard in
his voice, as he greeted Rachel. In that instant was planted the second
germ of unhappiness in Hetty's bosom. Of jealousy, in the ordinary
acceptation of the term; of its caprices, suspicions, subterfuges; and,
above all, of its resentments,--Hetty was totally incapable. If it had
been made evident to her in any one moment, that her husband loved
another woman, her first distinct thoughts would have been of sorrow for
him rather than for herself, and of perplexity as to what could be done
to make him happy again. At this moment, however, nothing took distinct
shape in Hetty's mind. It was merely the vague pain of a loving woman's
sensitive heart, surprised by the sight of tender looks and tones given
by her husband to another woman. It was wholly a vague pain, but it was
the germ of a great one; and, falling as it did on Hetty's already
morbid consciousness of her own loss of youth and beauty and
attractiveness, it fell into soil where such germs ripen as in a
hot-bed. In a less noble nature than Hetty's there would have grown up
side by side with this pain a hatred of Rachel, or, at least, an
antagonism towards her. In the fine equilibrium of Hetty's moral nature,
such a thing was impossible. She felt from that day a new interest in
Rachel. She looked at her, often scrutinizingly, and thought: "Ah, if
she were but well, what a sweet young wife she might make! I wish Eben
could have had such a wife! How much better it would have been for him
than having me!" She began now to go oftener with her husband to visit
Rachel. Closely, but with no sinister motive, no trace of ill-feeling,
she listened to all which they said. She observed the peculiar
gentleness with which the doctor spoke, and the docility with which
Rachel listened; and she said to herself: "That is quite unlike Eben's
manner to me, or mine to him. I wonder if that is not more nearly the
way