About this time the Earl began to be haunted by a certain dim suspicion: at first it seemed too monstrously absurd to be entertained seriously for a moment; but soon it grew into form and substance, and became terribly distinct and life-like--the possibility of his wife's despising him. When he had once admitted the probability, the mischief was done: he brooded over the idea with a gloomy pertinacity, till a blind, dull animosity took the place of love and trust. He swore to himself that, at whatever cost, he would regain and keep the supremacy: unfortunately he had never had it yet; and it would have been easier for him to twist a bar of cold steel with his bare hands, than to mould the will of Countess Helen. Every day he lost instead of gaining ground, only embittering the spirit of resistance, and widening a breach which could never be repaired. As if all this were not enough, before the year was out, another and darker element of discord rose up in the Earl's moody heart--though he scarcely confessed it even to himself--a fierce, irrational jealousy of Alan Wyverne. No one who had chanced to witness the parting of the cousins in the library at Dene, would have allowed the possibility of free unreserved intimacy, troubled, as it would seem, neither by repining nor misgiving, being established between them within two years. Though Alan spoke hopefully at the time, it may be doubted if he believed in his own words. Yet such contradictions and anomalies happen so often, that we ought to be tired of wondering. They moved in the same set, both in town and country, and were necessarily thrown much together. Wyverne soon managed to persuade himself that there was not the slightest reason why he should purposely avoid his fascinating cousin. As for Helen, I fear she did not discuss the question with her conscience at all. So, gradually and insensibly they fell into the old pleasant confidential ways--such as used to prevail before that fatal afternoon when Wyverne's self-control failed him, and he "spake unadvisedly with his lips" under the oak-boughs of the Holme Wood. Perhaps there might have been a certain amount of self-delusion; but I fancy that for a long time there was not a thought of harm on either side. As far as Alan was concerned, I do believe that his affection for Helen was as pure and honest and single-hearted as it is possible for a sinful man to entertain.