great and pure
happiness you enjoy will allow, and that you will wish a pleasant
journey to_

"Toinette."

CHAPTER X.

Two winters and two summers have passed since the evening when the
honeymoon happiness of the newly united pair was so deeply shadowed.
The blow, however, left very different traces on each. While Edwin,
after the first sudden pang, almost felt a satisfaction in knowing that
the sad confusion of this noble life was ended by a heroic death, Leah
was assailed by a strange melancholy, which caused her constantly to
reflect whether she herself was not partly to blame for this terrible
death. If she had not stood between them, if, in that first and only
interview, she had treated the well known stranger differently,--! And
again, even if the living woman would have had no further power over
Edwin's heart, how the image of this wonderful creature, who had turned
away from a lost life with such calm dignity now transfigured by death,
must haunt his memory and overshadow every bodily form. Then a secret
pride rebelled against the thought, that this voluntary departure might
have been a favor bestowed upon, a sacrifice made for _her_; as if the
generous Toinette had said to herself: "so long as I breathe, this
woman cannot be sure of her happiness and peace; one of us must step
aside."

She carefully concealed this restless succession of thoughts from
Edwin, and as his profession and the now steady labor on his book gave
him enough to do, he did not continually watch Leah, and attributed
certain dark moods, which did not wholly escape his notice, to her
changed condition and the anxiety natural to one about for the first
time to become a mother. In fact, the fulfilment of this most ardent
wish appeared to instantly transform her nature, and when the child lay
in its cradle, all shadows of the past seemed driven from the house by
perpetual sunlight. Thus a second year passed away.

When we again meet our friends it is once more vacation; but this time
we do not find them among mountains and valleys, or within the cosy
precincts of their new home. Leah, with pardonable maternal pride,
unable to resist her own desires and the pressing invitation of her
parents, has taken her rosy little girl, "who is already so sensible
and gives no trouble at all," with her to Berlin. They arrived
yesterday evening at the pretty litt