warded by a discovery which indescribably
irritated and distressed me.

A small photograph, mounted on a card, fell out of the book. A first
glance showed me that it represented the portraits of two persons.

One of the persons I recognized as my husband.

The other person was a woman.

Her face was entirely unknown to me. She was not young. The picture
represented her seated on a chair, with my husband standing behind, and
bending over her, holding one of her hands in his. The woman's face was
hard-featured and ugly, with the marking lines of strong passions and
resolute self-will plainly written on it. Still, ugly as she was, I felt
a pang of jealousy as I noticed the familiarly affectionate action by
which the artist (with the permission of his sitters, of course) had
connected the two figures in a group. Eustace had briefly told me, in
the days of our courtship, that he had more than once fancied himself
to be in love before he met with me. Could this very unattractive woman
have been one of the early objects of his admiration? Had she been near
enough and dear enough to him to be photographed with her hand in his? I
looked and looked at the portraits until I could endure them no longer.
Women are strange creatures--mysteries even to themselves. I threw the
photograph from me into a corner of the cupboard. I was savagely angry
with my husband; I hated--yes, hated with all my heart and soul!--the
woman who had got his hand in hers--the unknown woman with the
self-willed, hard-featured face.

All this time the lower shelf of the cupboard was still waiting to be
looked over.

I knelt down to examine it, eager to clear my mind, if I could, of the
degrading jealousy that had got possession of me.

Unfortunately, the lower shelf contained nothing but relics of the
Major's military life, comprising his sword and pistols, his epaulets,
his sash, and other minor accouterments. None of these objects excited
the slightest interest in me. My eyes wandered back to the upper
shelf; and, like the fool I was (there is no milder word that can
fitly describe me at that moment), I took the photograph out again, and
enraged myself uselessly by another look at it. This time I observed,
what I had not noticed before, that there were some lines of writing (in
a woman's hand) at the back of the portraits. The lines ran thus:

"To Major Fitz-David, with two vases. From his friends, S. and E. M."

Was one of those two vases the vas