I remember well the pain and horror that accompanied the suspicion when it first flashed upon me. I endeavoured to reason the conjecture away; but the very arguments I brought to bear against it turned traitor and marshalled themselves on the other side. I reviewed her conduct; I recalled her actions, her language, her moods. They increased my apprehension. Now that love no longer consented to blind me, now that I suffered myself to be possessed with suspicion, I knew that the truest confirmation of my fear was to be sought and found in her eyes. The light that sometimes leaped from their depths, the vacant dullness that sometimes made them lustreless, were not always the sparkle or the shadow of the mood then on her. I was alone when I first fell into this train of thinking. She had not left me long; and I heard her singing in the drawing-room as she sought in her portfolio for a sketch which she announced her intention to finish. I threw down the book I held and went to the library. My mood was a strange one: a curiosity and a despair--a feverish wish to know the truth, with a terror of that truth. I strode to and fro, dreading that my face (which I could never force to mask my feelings) would provoke her questioning, and striving to master the miserable doubts that had seized me. But she soon missed me and came to the library, peeping in as was her wont, and then, bounding forward with a movement graceful as a child's. "You shall not read," said she, taking my hand and pulling me to the door. "I want you to watch me finish my drawing of our home." "Leave me a little, Geraldine; I will be with you soon." "Why not now?" she asked, pouting her under lip. And then, coming in front of me, she looked right up in my face. "Arthur," she whispered, "you look now as you look when you are asleep." "What kind of look is that, Geraldine?" I said, forcing a smile. "Come with me and I will tell you." When we were in the parlour she took a penknife and began to sharpen a pencil. She frowned over her task and then laughed, but so quietly that the sound died in a breath. "Now, tell me how I look in my sleep." She laid knife and pencil on the table, and knelt before me, resting her hands on my knees. "Did you ever know I watched you in your sleep, Arthur?" "No." "Not by moonlight-though the moon shines bright sometimes; but never bright enough for me to see you. But when you are sleeping soundly I steal out of bed, and light the candle and watch you. But first I listen to your breathing. If it is calm then I watch; but if it is disturbed I go to sleep. Shall I tell you why?" "Yes." "Because I never know whether you are dreaming of me or not. If you breathe short and troubled, the expression of your face might give me pain--it would be troubled, too; and if I were to think at such a time that you were dreaming of me it would make me wretched." She sighed. "And when I breathe calmly?"