Her Faithful Knight — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 A Story of London. plicable and morbid jealousy if I so much as mentioned another man’s name, and hardly left my side. We spent the vacation together at Brighton, as I told you, going about as Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan, although he told me it was not his real name. By descent he came, he de- clared, from the ancient Italian nobility on his mother’s side, and the kings of Ireland on his father’s side. Yet he preserved a singular and, as it seemed, unnecessary mystery on the subject of his name and his former life, and very soon began to make me jealous and unhappy by alluding darkly to many women who had loved him, and whose photographs and letters he had preserved. “Brighton was delightful, but our return to the com- pany, for many reasons unpleasant and painful. Nat- urally, | was obliged to mention my marriage to the actresses, as Sergius and I took lodgings in the same house. I knew they all disliked me, but I was hardly prepared for the dead silence in which they received the announcement, or for the sneering whispers, intentional- ly audible to me, which immediately followed. It is true that I did not like them, but still they were women, and women are usually interested in a marriage. My heart ached, and a lump came into my throat at their behavior, which they followed up by a studied, scornful coldness and constant allusions to ‘the quiet ones being always the worse,’ which were at the time incompre- hensible to me. “Gradually, as I could not fail to see, Sergius’ first ar- dor cooled. Letters in a woman’s handwriting, which he read and reread in my presence, came for him daily. He began to leave me alone for hours, just when I was beginning to feel most keenly the necessity for sympa- thy and affectionate companionship. When my health gave way and I was no longer able to take long ram- bles with him, he seemed to think himself badly treated. EOMIGIoOO S (C@)