He bore my insults, and yet haunted the house, and lingered round the west parlour, now shut up, but where your mother always sat.

I found it impossible to hide entirely from Agnes my doubts of her love, and I soon saw that my involuntarily altered manner had made a corresponding change in hers.
The proud spirit within her was roused, and instead of endeavouring to soothe my suspicions, and show me my mistake, she went on her way apparently unheeding, holding her head high, and letting me form my own opinion of her actions.

I ought to have told you that her uncle had been so annoyed at her marriage with me that he had forbidden her to enter his doors again; and of this I was not sorry, though it roused my anger so much that I added my injunctions to the effect that if she wished to please me she would break off all acquaintance with her cousin, Ellen Vaughan.

This, however, she would not promise to do, and it was the first beginning of the rift, which afterwards widened into a chasm between us.

Her cousin also was too much attached to her to be easily alienated from her, and the two girls met more frequently than either her uncle or I were aware of.