Perhaps Thomas Payne had been to see his aunt.
[Illustration: "Thomas Payne advanced with a careless, stately
swing"]
All the rest of the day Barney was in an agony of doubt and unrest
over the unsettled question. He had been living lately in a sort of
wretched peace of remorse and misery; now it was rudely shaken. He
walked the floor; at night he could not sleep. He seemed to be in a
very torture-chamber of his own making, and the tortures were worse
than any enemies could have devised. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting
up with Charlotte this Sunday night. Once he thought, wildly, of
going up the hill to see if there was a light in her parlor, but it
seemed to him as if the doubt was more endurable than the certainty
might be. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting up with Charlotte; he
called to mind all her sweet ways. Suppose she was looking and
speaking to Thomas Payne in this way or that way; his imagination
threw out pictures before him upon which he could not close his eyes.
He saw Thomas Payne's face all glowing with triumph, he saw
Charlotte's with the old look that she had worn for him. Charlotte's
caresses had been few and maidenly; they all came into his mind like
stings. He knew just how she would put her tender arm around this
other man's neck, how she would lift grave, willing lips to his. He
wished that they had never been for him, for all they seemed worth to
him now was this bitter knowledge.
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