ly, like one who did not know
and never could. Yet I married her, and for six months lived in a
fool's paradise. Then came that ball. It was held near here, very
near; at one of our neighbor's, in fact. I remember that we walked,
and that, coming to the driveway, I lifted her and carried her
across. Not with a smile--do not think it. More likely with a
frown, though my heart was warm and happy; for when I set her down,
she shook herself, and I thought she did it to hide a shudder, and
then I could not have spoken a word had my life depended on it.

I little knew what lay back of that shudder. Even after I had seen
her dance with him, not only once, but twice, I never dreamed that
her thoughts, light though they were, were not all with me. It took
that morsel of paper and the plain words it contained to satisfy me
of this, and then--But passion is making me incoherent. What do you
know of that scrap of paper, hidden from the whole world from the
moment I first read it till this hour of full confession? It
fluttered from some one's hand during the dance. I did not see
whose. I only saw it after it had fallen at my feet, and as it lay
there open I naturally read the words. They were written by a man
to a woman, urging flight and setting the hour and place for
meeting. I was conscious of shame in reading it, and let these last
details escape me. As I put it in my pocket I remember thinking,
"Some poor devil made miserable!" for there had been hint in it of
the husband. But I had no thought--I swear it before God--of who
that husband was till I beheld her flit back through the open
doorway, with terror in her mien and searching eyes fixed on the
floor. Then hell opened before me, and I saw my happiness go down
into gulfs I had never before sounded, even in imagination.

But even at that evil hour my countenance scarcely changed--I was
opposite a mirror, and I caught a glimpse of myself as I moved. But
there must have been some change in my voice--for when I addressed
her, she started and turned her face upon me with a wild and
pathetic look which knocked so at my heart that I wished I had
never read those words, and so could return her the paper with no
misgiving as to its contents. But having read it, I could not do
this; so, beyond a petty greeting, I