ng,
infidelity. At the age which Cecily Doran had now attained, Miriam
believed that there were only a few men living so unspeakably wicked as
to repudiate Christianity; one or two of these, she had learnt from the
pulpit, were "men of science," a term which to this day fell on her
ears with sinister sound.

Thus prepared for the duties of wife, mother, and leader in society,
she shone forth upon Bartles. Her husband, essentially a coarse man,
did his utmost, though unconsciously, to stimulate her pride and supply
her with incentives to unworthy ambition. He was rich, and boasted of
it vulgarly; he was ignorant, and vaunted the fact, thanking Heaven
that for him the purity of religious conviction had never been
endangered by the learning that leads astray; he was proud of
possessing a young and handsome wife, and for the first time evoked in
her a personal vanity. Day by day was it--most needlessly--impressed
upon Miriam that she must regard herself as the chief lady in Bartles,
and omit no duty appertaining to such a position. She had an example to
set; she was chosen as a support of religion.

Most happily, the man died. Had he remained her consort for ten years,
the story of Miriam's life would have been one of those that will
scarcely bear dwelling upon, too repulsive, too heart-breaking; a few
words of bitterness, of ruth, and there were an end of it. His death
was like the removal of a foul burden that polluted her and gradually
dragged her down. Nor was it long before she herself understood it in
this way, though dimly and uncertainly. She found herself looking on
things with eyes which somehow had a changed power of vision. With
remarkable abruptness, certain of her habits fell from her, and she
remembered them only with distaste, even with disgust. And one day she
said to herself passionately that never would she wed again--never,
never! She was experiencing for the first time in her life a form of
liberty.

Not that her faith had received any shock. To her undeveloped mind
every tenet in which she had been instructed was still valid. This is
the point to note. Her creed was a habit of the intellect; she held it
as she did the knowledge of the motions of the earth. She had never
reflected upon it, for in everything she heard or read this
intellectual basis was presupposed. With doctrinal differences her
reasoning faculty was familiar, and with her to think of religion was
to think of the points at issue bet