Nothing
in my wife's conduct justified any such theory. Brake visited us
once or twice a week--in fact, when I returned from my business in
the village, I used to find him seated in the parlor with Elsie,
reading some favorite author, or conversing on some novel literary
topic; but there was no disposition to avoid my scrutiny. Brake
seemed to come as a matter of right; and the perfect
unconsciousness of furnishing any grounds for suspicion with which
he acted was a sufficient answer to my mind for any wild doubts
that my heart may have suggested.
Still I could not but remark that Brake's visits were in some
manner connected with Elsie's melancholy. On the days when he had
appeared and departed, the gloom seemed to hang more thickly than
ever over her head. She sat, on such occasions, all the evening at
the western window, silently gazing at the cleft in the hills
through which the sun passed to his repose.
At last I made up my mind to speak to her. It seemed to me to be
my duty, if she had a sorrow, to partake of it. I approached her
on the matter with the most perfect confidence that I had nothing
to learn beyond the existence of some girlish grief, which a
confession and a few loving kisses would exorcise forever.
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