e him and
strength to walk onward. Like thousands of other men, he had
discovered that a human soul was not a plaything, nor a piece of
machinery to wind up and set in motion at will; and like thousands
of other men, he had made this discovery too late.

CHAPTER XXII.

WITHOUT a note of warning, the public were startled by the news that
Mrs. Dexter had left her husband. Wisely, sober second thought laid
upon the lips of Mr. Dexter the seal of silence. He gave no reason
for the step his wife had taken, and declined answering all
inquiries, even from his nearest friends. From a man of impulse, he
seemed changed at once into a man of deliberate purpose. His elegant
home was not given up, though he lived in it a kind of half hermit
life. Abroad, he was reserved; while everything about him gave signs
of a painful inward conflict.

Of course, the social air was full of rumors, probable and
improbable, but none of them exactly true. Mrs. Dexter was wholly
silent, except to her wisest and truest friend, Mrs. De Lisle--and
her discretion ever kept her guarded. Mrs. Loring simply alleged
"incompatibility of temper"--that vague allegation which covers with
its broad mantle so wide a range of domestic antagonisms. And so the
public had its appetite piqued, and the nine days' wonder became the
wonder of a season. Hints towards the truth were embellished by
gossips' ready imaginations, and stories of wrong, domestic
tyranny, infidelity, and the like, were passed around, and related
with a degree of circumstantiality that gave them wide credence. Yet
in no instance was the name of Hendrickson connected with that of
Mrs. Dexter. So transient had been their intercourse, that no eye
but that of jealousy had noted their meeting as anything beyond the
meeting of indifferent acquaintances.

It was just one week from the day Paul Hendrickson caught an
unexpected glimpse of Mrs. Dexter's face at the window, and passed
on with her image freshened in his heart, that he called in at the
Ardens', after an unusually long absence, to spend an evening. Miss
Arden's countenance lighted with a sudden glow on his appearance,
the rich blood dyeing her cheeks, and giving her face a heightened
charm; and in the visitor's eyes there was something gentler and
softer in her beauty than he had before observed. He probably
guessed the cause; and the thought touched his feelings, and drew
his heart something nearer to her.

"That is a painful st