From day to day my maid came to me with insidious hints about Alma and
my husband. I found myself listening to them. I also found myself
refreshing my memory of the hideous scene in Paris, and wondering why I
had condoned the offence by staying an hour longer under my husband's
protection.
And then there was always another force at work within me--my own secret
passion. Though sometimes I felt myself to be a wretched sinner and
thought the burden I had to bear was heaven's punishment for my guilty
love, at other times my whole soul rose in revolt, and I cried out not
merely for separation from my husband but for absolute sundering.
Twice during the painful period of the house-party I heard from Martin.
His first letter was full of accounts of the far-reaching work of his
expedition--the engaging of engineers, electricians, geologists and
masons, and the shipping of great stores of wireless apparatus--for his
spirits seemed to be high, and life was full of good things for him.
His second letter told me that everything was finished, and he was to
visit the island the next week, going first to "the old folks" and
coming to me for a few days immediately before setting sail.
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