ompanion that her sick
mother possessed. Now, no generous, trusting love blinded me to the
real meaning of such events as these. Now, instead of regarding them as
little weaknesses of beauty, and little errors of youth, I saw them as
timely warnings, which bade me remember when the day of my vengeance
came, that in the contriving of the iniquity on which they were both
bent, the woman had been as vile as the man.

Sometimes, I was once more on my way to North Villa, after my week's
absence at our country house. I saw again the change in Margaret since
I had left her--the paleness, the restlessness, the appearance of
agitation. I took the hand of Mannion, and started as I felt its deadly
coldness, and remarked the strange alteration in his manner. When they
accounted for these changes by telling me that both had been ill, in
different ways, since my departure, I detected the miserable lie at
once; I knew that an evil advantage had been taken of my absence; that
the plot against me was fast advancing towards consummation: and that,
at the sight of their victim, even the two wretches who were compassing
my dishonour could not repress all outward manifestation of their guilt.

Sometimes, the figure of Mrs. Sherwin appeared to me, wan and weary, and
mournful with a ghostly mournfulness. Again I watched her, and listened
to her; but now with eager curiosity, with breathless attention. Once
more, I saw her shudder when Mannion's cold eyes turned on her face--I
marked the anxious, imploring look that she cast on Margaret and on
me--I heard her confused, unwilling answer, when I inquired the cause
of her dislike of the man in whom her husband placed the most implicit
trust--I listened to her abrupt, inexplicable injunction to "watch
continually over my wife, and keep bad people from her." All these
different circumstances occurred again as vividly as in the reality;
but I did not now account for them, as I had once accounted for them, by
convincing myself that Mrs. Sherwin's mind was wandering, and that her
bodily sufferings had affected her intellect. I saw immediately, that
she suspected Mannion, and dared not openly confess her suspicions; I
saw, that in the stillness, and abandonment, and self-concentration of
her neglected life, she had been watching more vigilantly than others
had watched; I detected in every one of her despised gestures, and
looks, and halting words, the same concealed warning ever lying beneath
the surf