She, too, watched him with an ever-increasing instinct of danger, studied with a chilly terror the workings of his face, weighed and reweighed his words in absence, agonized herself with new and ever new suspicions; and then, when these had accumulated beyond endurance, seized them convulsively and threw them all away. Then, coming back to him with a great overwhelming ardor of affection, she poured upon him more and more in proportion as he gave her less. Sometimes in these moments of renewed affection he half gave words to his remorse, accused himself before her of unnamed wrong, and besought her to help him return to his better self. These were the most dangerous moments of all, for such appeals made tenderness and patience appear a duty; she must put away her doubts as sins, and hold him to her; she must refuse to see his signs of faltering faith, or treat them as mere symptoms of ill health. Should not a wife cling the closer to her husband in proportion as he seemed alienated through the wanderings of disease? And was not this her position? So she said within herself, and meanwhile it was not hard to penetrate her changing thoughts, at least for so keen an observer as Aunt Jane. Hope, at length, almost ceased to speak of Malbone, and revealed her grief by this evasion, as the robin reveals her nest by flitting from it. Yet there were times when he really tried to force himself into a revival of this calmer emotion. He studied Hope’s beauty with his eyes, he pondered on all her nobleness. He wished to bring his whole heart back to her--or at least wished that he wished it. But hearts that have educated themselves into faithlessness must sooner or later share the suffering they give. Love will be avenged on them. Nothing could have now recalled this epicure in passion, except, possibly, a little withholding or semi-coquetry on Hope’s part, and this was utterly impossible for her. Absolute directness was a part of her nature; she could die, but not manouvre.