She did not speak discontentedly, but Rolfe saw already the justification of his misgivings. She had begun to feel the constant presence of the child a restraint and a burden. Happily, on their return home, Hughie would go to school for a couple of hours each morning. Alma could have wished it any other school than Mary Abbott's, but the thought was no longer so insupportable as when she suffered under her delusion concerning the two children. Now that she had frequently seen Minnie Wager, she wondered at the self-deception which allowed her to detect in the child's face a distinct resemblance to Harvey. Of course, there was nothing of the kind. She had been the victim of a morbid jealousy--a symptom, no doubt, of the disorder of the nerves which was growing upon her. Yet she could not overcome her antipathy to Mary Abbott. Harvey, she felt sure, would never have made himself responsible for those children, but that in doing so he benefited their teacher; and it was not without motive of conscience that he kept the matter secret. By no effort could Alma banish this suspicion. She resolved that it should never appear; she commanded her face and her utterance; but it was impossible for her ever to regard Mrs. Abbott with liking, or even with respect. In a darker corner of her mind lay hidden another shape of jealousy--jealousy unavowed, often disguised as fear, but for the most part betraying itself through the mask of hatred. Times innumerable, in nights that brought no rest, and through long hours of weary day, Alma had put her heart to the proof, and acquitted it of any feeling save a natural compassion for the man Hugh Carnaby had killed. She had never loved Redgrave, had never even thought of him with that curiosity which piques the flesh; yet so inseparably was he associated with her life at its points of utmost tension and ardour, that she could not bear to yield to any other woman a closer intimacy, a prior claim. At her peril she had tempted him, and up to the fatal moment she was still holding her own in the game which had become to her a passion. It ended--because a rival came between. Of Sibyl's guilt she never admitted a doubt; it was manifest in the story made public by Hugh Carnaby, the story which he, great simple fellow, told in all good faith, relying absolutely on his wife's assertion of innocence. Saving her husband, who believed Sibyl innocent?