own excessive joy! We were privately married
by the chaplain at the fort. There were no accommodations for the wives
of officers there. And, besides, my husband did not wish to announce our
marriage until he was ready to take me to his princely mansion in
Virginia."

"Humph!" grunted Herbert inwardly, for comment.

"But he built for me a pretty cabin in the woods below the fort,
furnished it simply and hired a half-breed Indian woman to wait on me.
Oh, I was too happy! To my wintry spring of life summer had come, warm,
rich and beautiful! There is a clause in the marriage service which
enjoins the husband to cherish his wife. I do not believe many people
ever stop to think how much is in that word. He did; he cherished my
little, thin, chill, feeble life until I became strong, warm and
healthful. Oh! even as the blessed sun warms and animates and glorifies
the earth, causing it to brighten with life and blossom with flowers and
bloom with fruit, so did my husband enrich and cherish and bless my
life! Such happiness could not and it did not last!"

"Of course not!" muttered Herbert to himself.

"At first the fault was in myself. Yes, Herbert it was! you need not
look incredulous or hope to cast all the blame on him! Listen: Happy,
grateful, adoring as I was, I was also shy, timid and bashful--never
proving the deep love I bore my husband except by the most perfect
self-abandonment to his will. All this deep, though quiet, devotion he
understood as mere passive obedience void of love. As this continued he
grew uneasy, and often asked me if I cared for him at all, or if it were
possible for a young girl like me to love an old man like himself."

"A very natural question," thought Herbert.

"Well, I used to whisper in answer, 'Yes,' and still 'Yes.' But this
never satisfied Major Warfield. One day, when he asked me if I cared for
him the least in the world, I suddenly answered that if he were to die I
should throw myself across his grave and lie there until death should
release me! whereupon he broke into a loud laugh, saying, 'Methinks the
lady doth protest too much.' I was already blushing deeply at the
unwonted vehemence of my own words, although I had spoken only as I
felt--the very, very truth. But his laugh and his test so increased my
confusion that, in fine, that was the first and last time I ever did
protest! Like Lear's Cordelia, I was tongue-tied--I had no words to
assure him. Sometimes I wept to think how