A man in my station always marries a woman of her sort.
Do you wonder if I was happy at this time? I should have been perfectly
happy but for one little drawback. It was this: I was never quite at my
ease in the presence of my promised wife.
I don't mean that I was shy with her, or suspicious of her, or ashamed of
her. The uneasiness I am speaking of was caused by a faint doubt in my
mind whether I had not seen her somewhere, before the morning when we met
at the doctor's house. Over and over again, I found myself wondering
whether her face did not remind me of some other face--_what_ other I
never could tell. This strange feeling, this one question that could never
be answered, vexed me to a degree that you would hardly credit. It came
between us at the strangest times--oftenest, however, at night, when the
candles were lit. You have known what it is to try and remember a
forgotten name--and to fail, search as you may, to find it in your mind.
That was my case. I failed to find my lost face, just as you failed to
find your lost name.
In three weeks we had talked matters over, and had arranged how I was to
make a clean breast of it at home. By Alicia's advice, I was to describe
her as having been one of my fellow servants during the time I was
employed under my kind master and mistress in London. There was no fear
now of my mother taking any harm from the shock of a great surprise.
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