The Old Goose Finds a Young Gander

We will suppose some months to have elapsed in this manner--months,
to me, of prolonged torture and suspicion. Circumstanees, like
petty billows of the sea, kept chafing upon the low places of my
heart, keeping alive the feverish irritation which had already done
so much toward destroying my peace, and overthrowing the guardian
outposts of my pride and honor. How long the strife was to bo
continued before the ocean-torrents should be let in--before the
wild passions should quite overwhelm my reason--was a subject of
doubt, but not the less a subject of present and of exceeding fear.
In these matters, I need not say that there was substantially very
little change in the character of events that marked the progress
of my domestic life. William Edgerton still continued the course
which he had so unwittingly begun. He still sought every opportunity
to see my wife, and, if possible, to see her alone. He avoided me
as much as possible; seldom came to the office; absolutely gave
up his business altogether; and, when we met, though his words and
manner were solicitously kind, there was a close restraint upon the
latter, a hesitancy about the former, a timid apprehensiveness in
his eye, and a generally-shown reluctance to approach me, which I
could not but see, and could not but perceive, at the same time,
that he endeavored with ineffectual effort to conceal. He was
evidently conscious that he was doing wrong. It was equally clear
to me that he lacked the manly courage to do right. What was all
this to end in?