y that she did not sympathize with her husband! How could
he be angry with her for her natural anxiety about her old friend! He was
unjust. There must be something wrong in these schemes, these great
operations that made so many confiding people suffer. Was everybody
grasping and selfish? She got up and walked about the dear room, which
recalled to her only the sweetest memories; she wandered aimlessly about
the lower part of the house. She was wretchedly unhappy. Was her husband
capable of such conduct? Would he cease to love her for what she had
done--for what she must do? How lovely this home was! Everything spoke of
his care, his tenderness, his quickness to anticipate her slightest wish
or whim. It had been all created for her. She looked listlessly at the
pictures, the painted ceiling, where the loves garlanded with flowers
chased each other; she lifted and let drop wearily the rich hangings. He
had said that it was all hers. How pretty was this vista through the
luxurious rooms down to the green and sunny conservatory. And she shrank
instinctively from it all. Was it hers? No; it was his. And was she only
a part of it? Was she his? How cold his look as he went away!

What is this love, this divine passion, of which we hear so much? Is it,
then, such a discerner of right and wrong? Is it better than anything
else? Does it take the place of duty, of conscience? And yet what an
unbearable desert, what a den of wild beasts it would be, this world,
without love, the passionate, all-surrendering love of the man and the
woman!

In the chambers, in her own apartments, into which she dragged her steps,
it was worse than below. Everything here was personal. Mrs. Fairchild had
said that it was too rich, too luxurious; but her husband would have it
so. Nothing was too costly, too good, for the woman he loved. How happy
she had been in this boudoir, this room, her very own, with her books,
the souvenirs of all her happy life!

It seemed alien now, external, unsympathetic. Here, least of all places,
could she escape from herself, from her hateful thoughts. It was a chilly
day, and a bright fire crackled on the hearth. The square was almost
deserted, though the sun illuminated it, and showed all the delicate
tracery of the branches and twigs. It was a December sun. Her easy-chair
was drawn to the fire and her book-stand by it, with the novel turned
down that she had been reading the night before. She sat down and took up
the