, not to his mere will," answered
Amanda, less warmly, but more resolutely than at first.

"Yes, to his will!" said Lane, growing blind from anger.

"That I have done long enough," returned the wife. "But the time is
past now. By your intelligence, when I see in it superior light to
what exists in my own, I will be guided, but, by your will--never!"

The onward moving current of years, which, for some time, had been
chafing amid obstructions, now met a sudden barrier, and flowed over
in a raging torrent. A sharp retort met this firm declaration of
Amanda, stinging her into anger, and producing a state of
recrimination. While in this state, she spoke plainly of his
assumption of authority over her from the first,--of her passiveness
for a time,--of being finally aroused to opposition.

"And now," she added, in conclusion, "I am content to be your wife
and equal, but will be no longer your passive and obedient slave."

"Your duty is to obey. You can occupy no other position as my wife,"
returned the blind and excited husband.

"Then we must part."

"Be it so." And as he said this, Lane turned hurriedly away and left
the house.

Fixed as a statue, for a long time, sat the stunned and wretched
wife. As the current of thoughts again flowed on, and the words of
her husband presented themselves in even a more offensive light than
when they were first uttered, indignant pride took the uppermost
place in her mind.

"He will not treat me as a wife and equal," she said, "and I will no
longer be his slave."

In anger Lane turned from his wife; and for hours after parting with
her this anger burned with an all-consuming flame. For him to yield
was out of the question. His manly pride would never consent to
this. She must fall back into her true position. He did not return
home, as usual, at dinner-time; but absented himself, in order to
give her time for reflection, as well as to awaken her fears lest he
would abandon her altogether. Towards night, imagining his wife in a
state of penitence and distressing anxiety, and feeling some
commiseration for her on that account, Mr. Lane went back to his
dwelling. As he stepped within the door, a feeling of desertion and
loneliness came over him; and unusual silence seemed to pervade the
house. He sat down in the parlour for some minutes; but hearing no
movement in the chamber above, nor catching even a murmur of his
child's voice, a sound for which his ears were longing, he asc