r husband.

Something in the quickness of her action makes him raise his head to
look at her. Catching the expression of her eyes, he sees that they
are full of passionate distrust, and at once reads her thoughts
aright. His brow darkens; and, rising, he goes over to her, and takes
her hands in his, not with a desire to conciliate, but most
untenderly.

"It is impossible you can accuse me of this thing," he says, his voice
low and angry.

"Few things are impossible," returns she, with cold disdain. "Remove
your hands, Dorian: they hurt me."

"At least you shall be convinced that in this instance, as in all the
others, you have wronged me."

Still holding her hands, he compels her to listen to him while he
reads aloud a letter from the wife of one of his tenants who has gone
to town on law business and who has written to him on the matter.

Such scenes only help to make more wide the breach between them.
Perhaps, had Georgie learned to love her husband before her marriage,
all might have been well; but the vague feeling of regard she had
entertained for him (that, during the early days of their wedded life,
had been slowly ripening into honest love, not having had time to
perfect itself) at the first check had given in, and fallen--hurt to
death--beneath the terrible attack it had sustained.

She fights and battles with herself at times, and, with passionate
earnestness, tries to live down the growing emptiness of heart that is
withering her young life. All night long sometimes she lies awake,
waiting wearily for the dawn, and longing prayerfully for some change
in her present stagnation.

And, even if she can summon sleep to her aid, small is the benefit she
derives from it. Bad dreams, and sad as bad, harass and perplex her,
until she is thankful when her lids unclose and she feels at least she
is free of the horrors that threatened her a moment since.

"Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But, 'tis the happy that have called thee so!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

"The waves of a mighty sorrow
Have whelmed the pearl of my life;
And there cometh to me no morrow
Shall solace this desolate strife.

* * * * *

"Gone are the last faint flashes,
Set in the sun of my years,
And over a few poor ashes
I sit in darkness and tears."--GERALD MASSEY.

All night the rain has fallen unceasingly; now the sun shines forth
again, as though forgett