" I was impatient and paced up and down the room.
"Can't you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?" says
she. "It's a bad compliment to me that you can't be contented
with my society for so short a time." "That's all right, my
lass," said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way,
but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if
they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all
there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I
frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in
silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the
shoulder. "Steady old Jim!" said she, and with a kind o' mocking
laugh, she ran out of the room.
"'Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and
soul, and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let
her go on biding with us--a besotted fool--but I never said a
word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on
much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a
bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting
and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting
to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my
letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand
such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable,
and we had ceaseless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by
it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just
inseparable.
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