“I cared little for friends, and urged my suit the more vehemently, as we were about going into Scotland, where our marriage could be celebrated in private at any time. I did not contemplate making the affair public at once. That would take from the interest and romance, while, unknown to myself, there was at heart a fear of my family. “But not to dwell too long upon those days, which seem to me now like a dream, we went to Scotland and were married privately, for I won her to this at last. “My brother’s failing health, as well as Hatty’s, prevented them from suspecting what was going on, and when at last we went to Italy they had no idea that Genevra was my wife. At Rome her beautiful face attracted much attention from tourists and residents, among whom were a few young men, who, looking upon her as Jamie’s nurse, or at most a companion for his mother, made no attempt to disguise their admiration. For this I had no redress except in an open avowal of the relation in which I stood to her, and this I could not then do, for the longer it was deferred the harder I found it to acknowledge her my wife. I loved her devotedly, and that perhaps was one great cause of the jealousy which began to spring up and embitter my life. “I do not now believe that Genevra was at heart a coquette. She was very fond of admiration, but when she saw how much I was disturbed she made an effort to avoid those who flattered her, but her manner was unfortunate, while her voice—the sweetest I ever heard—was calculated to invite rather than repel attention. As the empress of the world, she would have won and kept the homage of mankind, from the humblest beggar in the street to the king upon the throne, and had I been older I should have been proud of what then was my greatest annoyance. But I was a mere boy—and I watched her jealously, until a new element of disquiet was presented to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I once found Genevra in close converse, starting and blushing guiltily when I came upon her, while her companion went swiftly from my sight. “It was an old English acquaintance, who was poor and asking charity,” she said, when questioned, but her manner led me to think there was something wrong, particularly as I saw her with him again, and thought she held his hand. “It was evident that my brother would never see America again, and at his request my mother came to us, in company with a family from Boston, reaching us two weeks before he died. From the first she disliked Genevra, and suspected the liking between us, but never dreaming of the truth until a week after Jack’s death, when in a fit of anger at Genevra for listening to an English artist, who had asked to paint her picture, the story of the marriage came out, and like a child dependent on its mother for advice, I asked, ‘What shall I do??