Tomasine was the last to understand her husband's uneasiness. She fancied at first that it was only to scare them, that he came upon them in that way. His complaints of her untidiness were merited. One has to _learn_ to keep everything tidy about one. Later, when there could be no mistake, she asked herself if he were jealous of her friends. In that case he ought to have been so before; they came oftener then than now. Was he afraid, then? Afraid of what? That they should talk about him? What could they say? She knew as she asked it. He was out at the moment, so that she had time to cool down a little. It was not her nature to come to hasty determinations, nor was it clear to her how she ought to take it, or what rights she had, or had not, in her married life. She had never spoken to any one on the subject, never read about it. The pain lessened little by little as she pondered. She took up her work again, and tried to appear as if nothing had happened. Kurt, however, observed at once that her manner was different. From that time forward he sometimes saw that she had been crying. Every time he came in he asked if any one had been there. "No." Once she heard him, a little while afterwards, ask the gardener if any one had been with "the Missis" whilst he was out. He was shy with her and guarded, actually uneasy. But he could not continue this long, and without warning became impatient and rough; then repented his violence and begged her pardon twenty times, and this again and again. Tomasine was not nervous, so that she was neither frightened by the former, nor did the latter make her alter her behaviour. She was friendly, but always reserved. So things drifted on towards a storm. They both knew it. The changes from cold to hot became more sudden, the squalls which preceded them heavier, the stillness and sultriness which followed them more dangerous. Yet in the midst of it all he could be so wonderfully kind, so naturally bright and considerate, that sometimes she forgot all presentiments, and gave herself up to the hope that, under her quiet guardianship, which he quite understood, their life might at last become what she realised by an ordinary, honourable married life.