e deep
into hers; his sweet, passionate kisses burn upon her lips.

The radiant finger stole softly up her dress, across her lap, and made
a little pool of brightness in the heart of which the letter lay;
outside in the dove-cote a pigeon cooed sleepily to his mate.

What was that tale of long ago that was coming strangely back to her?
A girl, one whom they all knew and loved, had been separated from her
husband after several years of misery, bravely borne. Her husband had
been a confirmed drunkard, and in his cups was as one possessed with
devils. They had grieved over Clare, and when her husband's brutality
grew such that her brother interfered and insisted on her procuring a
divorce for the protection of herself and her children, they had felt
that it was right; and while they deplored the necessity, they had
sided with Clare throughout. But when, two years later, wedding cards
had come from Clare, from some place in the West, whither she had moved
with her children; it had been a grievous shock, for the drunkard still
lived. It had seemed a strange and monstrous thing, and their judgment
had been severe--their censure scathing. Poor Clare! She understood
her temptation better now. Poor little Clare!

What was it Jim had said? The men had been guarded in the expression
of their opinion before her; they were fastidious in conversation
before women. This, he had said in an under-tone to Berkeley, but she
had caught it, and caught also the scorn of the hazel eye, and knew
that the lip curled under the brown mustache. He had said--"To a woman
of innate purity the thing would be impossible. There is a coarseness
in the situation which is revolting."

What would he think of her? She was weighing the matter--canvassing
its possibility. Was her nature deteriorating? Was she growing
coarser, less pure? Would her old friend, whose standard was so high,
despise her? Would she be lowered in the eyes of those whose influence
and opinions had, heretofore, molded her life? The associations of
years are not uprooted and cast aside in days or in months.
Responsibilities engendered by the past environed her, full-grown,
comprehensible, insistent; responsibilities which might be engendered
by the future, lay in her mind a tiny germ in which the embryo life had
scarcely begun to stir. The duty to the old life seemed to her plain
and clear; a beaten track along which she might safely travel. The
duty to another lif