e, and
one that might be used effectively on the stage. He analyzed it
perfectly in that unhappy moment. She was jealous of his work, which she
had tolerated only while she could share it, and if she could not share
it, while some other was suffered to do so, it would be cruel for her.
But he knew that he could not offer any open concession now without
making bad worse, and he must wait till the right time for it came. He
had so far divined her, without formulating her, that he knew she would
be humiliated by anything immediate or explicit, but would later accept
a tacit repentance from him; and he instinctively forebore.

III.

For the present in her resentment of his willingness to abase his genius
before Godolphin, or even to hold it in abeyance, Mrs. Maxwell would not
walk to supper with her husband in the usual way, touching his shoulder
with hers from time to time, and making herself seem a little lower in
stature by taking the downward slope of the path leading from their
cottage to the hotel. But the necessity of appearing before the people
at their table on as perfect terms with him as ever had the effect that
conduct often has on feeling, and she took his arm in going back to
their cottage, and leaned tenderly upon him.

Their cottage was one of the farthest from the hotel, and the smallest
and quietest. In fact there was yet no one in it but themselves, and
they dwelt there in an image of home, with the sole use of the veranda
and the parlor, where Maxwell had his manuscripts spread about on the
table as if he owned the place. A chambermaid came over from the hotel
in the morning to put the cottage in order, and then they could be quite
alone there for the rest of the day.

"Shall I light the lamp for you, Brice?" his wife asked, as they mounted
the veranda steps.

"No," he said, "let us sit out here," and they took the arm-chairs that
stood on the porch, and swung to and fro in silence for a little while.
The sea came and went among the rocks below, marking its course in the
deepening twilight with a white rope of foam, and raving huskily to
itself, with now and then the long plunge of some heavier surge against
the bowlders, and a hoarse shout. The Portland boat swam by in the
offing, a glitter of irregular lights, and the lamps on the different
points of the Cape blinked as they revolved in their towers. "This is
the kind of thing you can get only in a novel," said Maxwell, musingly.
"You cou