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This proceeding alarmed me. I dreaded lest my secret should be
discovered. I was shocked lest my wife should suppose me jealous.
The feeling is one which carries with it a sufficiently severe
commentary, in the fact that most men are heartily ashamed to be
thought to suffer from it. But, if it vexed me to think that she
should know or suspect the truth, how much more was I troubled
lest it should be seen or suspected by others! This fear led to
new circumspection. I now affected levities of demeanor and remark;
studiously absented myself from home of an evening, leaving my wife
with Edgerton, or any other friend who happened to be present; and,
though I began no practices of profligacy, such as are common to
young scapegraces in all times, I yet, to some moderate extent,
affected them.

A tone of sadness now marked the features of my wife. There was
an expression of anxiety in her countenance, which, amid all her
previous sufferings, I had never seen there before. She did not
complain; but sometimes, when we sat alone together, I reading,
perhaps, and she sewing, she would drop her work in her lap, and
sigh suddenly and deeply, as if the first shadows of the upgathering
gloom were beginning to cloud her young and innocent spirit, and
force her apprehensions into utterance. This did not escape me, but
I read its signification, as witches are said to read the Bible,
backward. A gloomier fancy filled my brain as I heard her unconscious
sigh.