“Strangers! Why, how you talk!--Good old Mrs. Porterfield seems to me like my own grandmother, and Edgerton has been my friend---” Did I really hear her say the single word, “Friend!” and with such an accent! The sound was a very slight one--it may have been my fancy only;--and she turned away a moment after. What could it mean? I was bewildered. I followed her to the chamber. I endeavored to renew the subject in such a manner as not to offend her suspicions, but she seemed to have taken the alarm. She answered me in monosyllables only, and without satisfying the curiosity which that single word, doubtfully uttered, had so singularly awakened. “Only love me--love me, Edward, and keep with me, and I will not complain. But if you leave me--if you neglect me--I am desolate!” CHAPTER XLIII. ACCIDENT AND MORE AGONIES. There was something very unaccountable in all this. I say unaccountable, with the distinct understanding that it was unaccountable only to that obtuse condition of mind which is produced by the demon of the blind heart. My difficulties of judging were only temporary, however. The sinister spirit made his whisper conclusive in the end. “This vehemence,” it suggested, “which is so unwonted with her, is evidently unnatural, It--is affected for an object. What is that object? It is the ordinary one with persons in the wrong, who always affect one extreme of feeling when they would conceal another. She fears that you will suspect that she is very well satisfied in your absence; accordingly she strives to convince you that she was never so dissatisfied. Of course you can not believe that a man so well endowed as Edgerton, so graceful, having such fine tastes and accomplishments, can prove other than an agreeable companion! What then should be your belief?” There was a devilish ingenuity in this sort of perversion. It had its effect. I believed it; and believing it, revolted, with a feeling of hate and horror, at the supposed loathsome hypocrisy of that fond embrace, and those earnest pleadings, which, in the moment of their first display, had seemed so precious to my soul. In the morning, when I was setting forth from home, she put her arm on my shoulder:-- “Come home soon. Edward, and let us go together on the hill. Let nobody know. Surely we shall be company enough for each other. I will sketch you a view of the river while you read Wordsworth to me.” “Now,” whispered my demon in my ears, “that is ingenious. Let nobody know; as if, having a friend in the neighborhood--on a visit--be sick and in bad spirits--you should propose to yourself a pleasure trip of any kind without inviting him to partake of it? She knows THAT to be out of the question, and that you must ask Edgerton if you resolve to go yourself.” Such was the artful suggestion of my familiar. My resolve--still recognising the cruel policy by which I had been so long governed--was instantly taken. This was to invite Edgerton and Kingsley both.