have not made my life pleasant to me of late"--"the hardships
which our marriage has brought on me"--these words were stinging his
imagination as a pain makes an exaggerated dream. If he were not only
to sink from his highest resolve, but to sink into the hideous
fettering of domestic hate?

"Rosamond," he said, turning his eyes on her with a melancholy look,
"you should allow for a man's words when he is disappointed and
provoked. You and I cannot have opposite interests. I cannot part my
happiness from yours. If I am angry with you, it is that you seem not
to see how any concealment divides us. How could I wish to make
anything hard to you either by my words or conduct? When I hurt you, I
hurt part of my own life. I should never be angry with you if you
would be quite open with me."

"I have only wished to prevent you from hurrying us into wretchedness
without any necessity," said Rosamond, the tears coming again from a
softened feeling now that her husband had softened. "It is so very
hard to be disgraced here among all the people we know, and to live in
such a miserable way. I wish I had died with the baby."

She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such words and
tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man. Lydgate drew his chair
near to hers and pressed her delicate head against his cheek with his
powerful tender hand. He only caressed her; he did not say anything;
for what was there to say? He could not promise to shield her from the
dreaded wretchedness, for he could see no sure means of doing so. When
he left her to go out again, he told himself that it was ten times
harder for her than for him: he had a life away from home, and constant
appeals to his activity on behalf of others. He wished to excuse
everything in her if he could--but it was inevitable that in that
excusing mood he should think of her as if she were an animal of
another and feebler species. Nevertheless she had mastered him.

CHAPTER LXVI.

"'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall."
--Measure for Measure.

Lydgate certainly had good reason to reflect on the service his
practice did him in counteracting his personal cares. He had no longer
free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking,
but by the bedside of patients, the direct external calls on his
judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him
out of hi