feeling--his own quick but
not meditated response--and the sudden appearance of her husband,
whose clouded countenance was full of angry suspicion.

"To this!--and so soon!" said Hendrickson to himself, as he left the
house of Mrs. Arden. "Oh, that I could stretch out my hand to save
her!--That I could shield her from the tempests!--That I could
shelter her from the burning heats! But I cannot. There is a great
gulf between us, and I may not pass to her, nor she to me. Oh, my
soul! is this separation to be for all time?"

There was rebellion in the heart of Paul Hendrickson when he reached
his home; and a wild desire to overleap all barriers of separation.

"There will be a divorce in all probability," so he began talking
with himself. "Jessie will never return to him after this violent
separation; and he, after a time, will ask to have the marriage
annulled. He will not be able to bring proof of evil against
her--will, I am sure, not even attempt it; for no evidence exists.
But her steady refusal to live with him as his wife, will enable
him, it may be, to get a divorce. And then!"

There was a tone of exultation in his voice at the closing words.

"And whosoever marrieth her which is put away, committeth adultery."

Hendrickson started to his feet, his face as pale as ashes, and
glanced almost fearfully about the room. The voice seemed spoken in
the air--but it was not so. The warning had reached his sense of
hearing by an inner way.

Then he sat down, and pondered this new question, so suddenly
presented for solution, turning it towards every light--viewing it
now from the side of human feeling and human reason--and now with
the light of Divine Revelation shining upon it. But he was not
satisfied. The letter of the record was against him; but nature
cried out for some different reading. At length he made an effort to
thrust the subject aside.

"What folly is this?" he said, still talking with himself. "Wait!
wait! wait!--the time is not yet. Separation only exists. There is
no divorce. The great, impassable gulf is yet between us. I cannot
go to her. She cannot come to me. I must wait, hopefully, if not
patiently, the issue of events."

The thoughts of Hendrickson had once more been turning themselves
towards Miss Arden, and he had felt the glow of warmer feelings. He
had even begun to think again of marriage.

"Let that illusion go!" he said. "It must no longer tempt me to the
commission of an act that