!--they might have been so happy in the solitude of
that beautiful spot, but for the chasm which lay between the souls of
these married people, scarcely perceptible as yet, but widening every
hour!

Elizabeth watched her husband incessantly. She tortured every evidence
of affection into a forced kindness, an attempt to hide his want of
love; he was trying to make all the atonement in his power, to give her
everything that could make life pleasant, except the place in his heart
which was her right. How her soul revolted against the thought!

She was mortally hurt and grieved that he could have deceived her. If he
had only spoken the truth, only left her to decide whether she could be
content to accept an outer place in his regard, to make his home happy,
to guard and cherish his sister--if he had only left this decision in
her hands, the matter would have worn a different aspect.

But that he should have been silent--that even now he should guard his
secret, practising this daily deception, and meaning to let it lie
between them all through life--was a never-ceasing thorn in her heart.

Mellen, in turn, was watching her; watching her with that morbid
suspicion which made the groundwork of his character. Observant of the
change in her manner, and trying always to account for it, but only
making himself restless and anxious to no purpose.

He had loved her, he did love her, and the only reason she was, as he
supposed, ignorant of the humiliating story of his past, was because he
had put it resolutely out of his mind; and it hurt his pride too much to
go over the detail of the deceit and treachery from which he had
suffered, even in his own thoughts.

Elsie's absence was prolonged to a fortnight, and when she returned,
Mrs. Harrington and Tom Fuller came back with her.

The girl was in more joyous spirits than ever; more bewitching and
beautiful, if possible; and Elizabeth could see plainly that Mellen's
love for her fell little short of absolute idolatry.

She was not jealous. If Elsie had been her own sister, she could not
have become more attached to her than she had grown during their year of
companionship. But it was very hard to see of what love her husband was
capable, and to remember that no part of it could be won for her; that
between her soul and his, rose the image of that false woman, whose
treachery had steeled his heart against such love as she thirsted for.

Tom Fuller was a more hopeless lunatic th