Happily, on their return home, Hughie would go to school for a couple of hours each morning.  Alma could have wished it any other school than Mary Abbott’s, but the thought was no longer so insupportable as when she suffered under her delusion concerning the two children.  Now that she had frequently seen Minnie Wager, she wondered at the self-deception which allowed her to detect in the child’s face a distinct resemblance to Harvey.  Of course, there was nothing of the kind.  She had been the victim of a morbid jealousy —­ a symptom, no doubt, of the disorder of the nerves which was growing upon her.  Yet she could not overcome her antipathy to Mary Abbott.  Harvey, she felt sure, would never have made himself responsible for those children, but that in doing so he benefited their teacher; and it was not without motive of conscience that he kept the matter secret.  By no effort could Alma banish this suspicion.  She resolved that it should never appear; she commanded her face and her utterance; but it was impossible for her ever to regard Mrs Abbott with liking, or even with respect.

In a darker corner of her mind lay hidden another shape of jealousy —­ jealousy unavowed, often disguised as fear, but for the most part betraying itself through the mask of hatred.

Times innumerable, in nights that brought no rest, and through long hours of weary day, Alma had put her heart to the proof, and acquitted it of any feeling save a natural compassion for the man Hugh Carnaby had killed.  She had never loved Redgrave, had never even thought of him with that curiosity which piques the flesh; yet so inseparably was he associated with her life at its points of utmost tension and ardour, that she could not bear to yield to any other woman a closer intimacy, a prior claim.  At her peril she had tempted him, and up to the fatal moment she was still holding her own in the game which had become to her a passion.  It ended —­ because a rival came between.  Of Sibyl’s guilt she never admitted a doubt; it was manifest in the story made public by Hugh Carnaby, the story which he, great simple fellow, told in all good faith, relying absolutely on his wife’s assertion of innocence.  Saving her husband, who believed Sibyl innocent?

She flattered herself with the persuasion that it was right to hate Sibyl —­ a woman who had sold herself for money, whose dishonour differed in no respect from that of the woman of the pavement.  And all the more she hated her because she feared her.  What security could there be that Redgrave’s murderer (thus she thought of him) had kept the secret which he promised to keep?  That he allowed no hint of it to escape him in public did not prove that he had been equally scrupulous with Sibyl; for Hugh was a mere plaything in the hands of his wife, and it seemed more than likely that he had put his stupid conscience at rest by telling her everything.  Were it so, what motive would weigh with Sibyl to keep her silent?  One, and one only, could be divined: