CHAPTER X.
The summer was spent by us in the company of Mrs.Temple and Constance, partly at Royston and partly at Worth Maltravers.

John had again hired the cutter-yacht _Palestine_, and the whole party made several expeditions in her.

Constance was entirely devoted to her lover; her life seemed wrapped up in his; she appeared to have no existence except in his presence.
I can scarcely enumerate the reasons which prompted such thoughts, but during these months I sometimes found myself wondering if John still returned her affection as ardently as I knew had once been the case.
I can certainly call to mind no single circumstance which could justify me in such a suspicion.

He performed punctiliously all those thousand little acts of devotion which are expected of an accepted lover; he seemed to take pleasure in perfecting any scheme of enjoyment to amuse her; and yet the impression grew in my mind that he no longer felt the same heart-whole love to her that she bore him, and that he had himself shown six months earlier.

I cannot say, my dear Edward, how lively was the grief that even the suspicion of such a fact caused me, and I continually rebuked myself for entertaining for a moment a thought so unworthy, and dismissed it from my mind with reprobation.