d be no worse suffering than this struggle in which
Diard received insults he did not feel and Juana felt those she did not
receive. A moment came, an awful moment, when she gained a clear and
lucid perception of society, and felt in one instant all the sorrows
which were gathering themselves together to fall upon her head. She
judged her husband incapable of rising to the honored ranks of the
social order, and she felt that he would one day descend to where his
instincts led him. Henceforth Juana felt pity for him.

The future was very gloomy for this young woman. She lived in constant
apprehension of some disaster. This presentiment was in her soul as
a contagion is in the air, but she had strength of mind and will to
disguise her anguish beneath a smile. Juana had ceased to think of
herself. She used her influence to make Diard resign his various
pretensions and to show him, as a haven, the peaceful and consoling life
of home. Evils came from society--why not banish it? In his home Diard
found peace and respect; he reigned there. She felt herself strong to
accept the trying task of making him happy,--he, a man dissatisfied with
himself. Her energy increased with the difficulties of life; she had all
the secret heroism necessary to her position; religion inspired her with
those desires which support the angel appointed to protect a Christian
soul--occult poesy, allegorical image of our two natures!

Diard abandoned his projects, closed his house to the world, and lived
in his home. But here he found another reef. The poor soldier had one of
those eccentric souls which need perpetual motion. Diard was one of
the men who are instinctively compelled to start again the moment they
arrive, and whose vital object seems to be to come and go incessantly,
like the wheels mentioned in Holy Writ. Perhaps he felt the need of
flying from himself. Without wearying of Juana, without blaming Juana,
his passion for her, rendered tranquil by time, allowed his natural
character to assert itself. Henceforth his days of gloom were more
frequent, and he often gave way to southern excitement. The more
virtuous a woman is and the more irreproachable, the more a man likes
to find fault with her, if only to assert by that act his legal
superiority. But if by chance she seems really imposing to him, he feels
the need of foisting faults upon her. After that, between man and wife,
trifles increase and grow till they swell to Alps.

But Juana, p