eel it to be my duty to
speak of it now, and to suggest, at least temporarily, a change."

Mr. Edwards did not reply for some moments. He then said--

"Mrs. Harrison, I must own that what you allege surprises me. You
charge me, by implication at least, with want of affection for my
wife."

"No, Percy," returned the lady quickly. "I did not mean to say that.
I only spoke of your manner towards her, which lacks the warmth a
woman's heart requires. I have not said that you did not love her."

"I do not see how I can act differently; for I see no defect in my
conduct," said the young man, with a repellant manner. "If my wife
misinterprets the manner in which I treat her, and makes herself
unhappy about it, that is no fault of mine. She ought to have the
good sense to take me as I am, and not make herself wretched because
I am not what I cannot be."

"You still misunderstand me, Percy," urged (sic) the the mother of
Kate. "I did not say that your wife made herself wretched because
your manner towards her was not different. I only suggested a
modification of it, at least for the present, as a means of aiding
in her return to a healthier state of mind. But we will say no more
about this. I have frankly opened my mind to you, and thus far
discharged my duty. You must now act as your own heart directs."

Percy showed no inclination to continue the subject. His manner
plainly enough indicated that the conversation had given him no
pleasure; and that he believed the mother of Kate to have exceeded
the privilege of her position. When they parted, it was with the
most formal politeness on both sides.

After Mrs. Harrison parted with Percy Edwards, the young man
remained alone for nearly an hour. Sometimes he walked the floor
with hurried steps, his manner greatly excited; sometimes he sat
beside a table, with his head leaning upon his hand, so buried in
thought as to be almost motionless; and sometimes he muttered to
himself, as he aroused up from these fits of abstraction.

"Ah me!" he sighed, at last, rising slowly from his chair, and
beginning to walk about, but with less agitation of manner than
before exhibited. "This was a great mistake,--the one great error of
my life. How blind I was not to have foreseen just such a result as
this! I never had the smallest impulse of affection for her, and
never can have. Both are unhappy in our bonds, and both will be so
until death severs the unnatural tie. Ah me! A hundred thous