Since the departure from Trennach of Rosaline Bell--for whom Mr. Blase Pellet did undoubtedly entertain a fond and sincere affection, whatever might have been his shortcomings generally--he had found his evening hours, when the chemist's shop was closed for the night, hang heavily on his hands. With the absence of Rosaline, the two chief relaxations in which Mr. Blase had employed his leisure were gone: namely, the cunning contrivances to meet her, either at home or abroad; and watching the movements of Frank Raynor. The young man's jealousy of the latter and Rosaline burnt as fiercely as ever, tormenting him to a most unreasonable degree: though, indeed, when was jealousy ever amenable to reason? There was no longer any personal intercourse between Frank Raynor and Rosaline; Blase knew quite well that could not be, for Frank was at Trennach, and she was at Falmouth; but he had felt as sure, ever since she went, that their intercourse was carried on by letter, as that he was now sitting on the stump of the old tree. Jealousy needs no proof to confirm its fancies: our great master-mind has told us that it makes the food it feeds on. And upon this airy, unsubstantial kind of food had Mr. Pellet been nourishing his suspicions of the supposed correspondence--which existed in his imagination alone. He had watched the postman in a morning, he had waylaid him, and by apparently artless questions had got him to disclose to whom the letter was addressed which he had just left at Dr. Raynor's: and the less proof he could find of the suspected postal intercourse, the brighter his jealousy burned. For it was not often that the postman could say the letter, which he might have chanced to leave at the doctor's house, was for Mr. Frank Raynor. Sometimes it would be for the doctor himself, sometimes for Miss Raynor; but very rarely for Frank. Frank's correspondence did not seem to be an extensive one. This might possibly have satisfied an ordinary young man; it only tended to strengthen Mr. Blase Pellet's raging doubts: and now, on this ill-favoured evening, those doubts had received "confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ."