He ever and especially dreaded to be alone; he could not bear his new companion to be absent from his eyes: he rode with her, walked with her, and it was with visible reluctance, which almost partook of horror, that he retired to rest at an hour when even revel grows fatigued.

This gloom was not that which could be called by the soft name of melancholy,--it was far more intense; it seemed rather like despair.

Often after a silence as of death--so heavy, abstracted, motionless, did it appear--he would start abruptly, and cast hurried glances around him,--his limbs trembling, his lips livid, his brows bathed in dew.

Convinced that some secret sorrow preyed upon his mind, and would consume his health, it was the dearest as the most natural desire of Adela to become his confidant and consoler.

She observed, with the quick tact of the delicate, that he disliked her to seem affected by, or even sensible of, his darker moods.
She schooled herself to suppress her fears and her feelings.