Like most women who allow their minds to dwell constantly on one theme, Norma exaggerated the past.  When she first left school there had been a little semi-sentiment and a good deal of rather warm cousinly attentions on Thorne’s part, but without serious intention.  As has been stated, Thorne liked women; he sought their society and was apt to endeavor to awaken their interest, to gain their affection.  He thought that the restless craving of his nature was for love to be given him.  It was not.  It was the wild passion in his breast seeking to give itself.  What he needed was not more love drawn into the reservoir of his heart, but an outlet for that already accumulated.  This he had never had since he had reached manhood, save only in his affection for his child, and that was as yet too small a channel to afford vent for the power of love behind.  And so it came to pass that in his need for an outlet, he had made a great deal of love to a great many women, and had looked more than he made.

As Norma budded into beautiful womanhood, he had been attracted by her, and had yielded to the attraction, intending no harm but accomplishing a good deal.  He had liked and admired his cousin then, and in exactly the same manner and degree, he liked and admired her now.

To the young lady, the affair wore a totally different aspect; the flirtation, which had meant nothing to him and had been long ago effaced from his memory, meant every thing of value on earth to her, and was as fresh in her mind as though the years that had passed had been days or hours.  Thorne’s marriage had been a great blow to her—­great and unexpected.  She had observed his attentions to Ethel Ross, and raged at them in secret; but she had seen him equally devoted to a score of other women, and the devotion had been evanescent; with her rage and jealousy, had mingled no definite alarm.  The engagement—­an affair of six weeks, had been contracted while she was away from home, and the first intimation she had of it came through a letter from Ethel Ross inviting her to officiate as bridesmaid.  Norma read and the heart within her died, but she made no sound, for she was a proud woman—­as proud as she was passionate.  She even acceded to the bride’s request and, as Thorne’s next of kin, led the bevy of girls selected, from the fairest of society to do honor to the occasion; her refusal would have excited comment.  But as she stood behind the woman, who she felt had usurped her place, a fierce longing was in her heart to strike her rival dead at her feet.

After the marriage she continued her intimacy with Mrs. Thorne—­and with Mr. Thorne.  When clouds began to gather along the matrimonial horizon, and “rifts within the lute” to make discord of life’s music, she beheld the one, and hearkened to the other with savage thrills of satisfaction.  She did nothing to widen the breach—­Norma was too proud to be a mischief-maker, but she did nothing to lessen it.  She watched with sullen pleasure the cleft increase to a crack, the crack to a chasm.  When the separation became an accomplished fact, it found Norma, of course, ranged strongly on the husband’s side.