As Mrs. Talbot ran on in this strain, Mrs. Emerson had time to reflect and school her exterior. Toward Major Willard her feelings were those of disgust and detestation. The utterance of his name shocked her womanly delicacy, but when it was coupled with a sentiment of admiration for her, and an intimation of the probable existence of something reciprocal on her part, it was with difficulty that she could restrain a burst of indignant feeling. But her strong will helped her, and she gave no intelligible sign of what was really passing in her thoughts. The subject being altogether disagreeable, she changed it as soon as possible.

In this interview with Mrs. Talbot a new impression in regard to her was made on the mind of Mrs. Emerson. Something impure seemed to pervade the mental atmosphere with which she was surrounded, and there seemed to be things involved in what she said that shadowed a latitude in morals wholly outside of Christian duty. When they separated, much of the enthusiasm which Irene had felt for this specious, unsafe acquaintance was gone, and her power over her was in the same measure lessened.



CHAPTER XV.

CAPTIVATED AGAIN.

BUT it is not so easily escaping from a woman like Mrs. Talbot, when an acquaintanceship is once formed. In less than a week she called again, and this time in company with another lady, a Mrs. Lloyd, whom she introduced as a very dear friend. Mrs. Lloyd was a tall, spare woman, with an intellectual face, bright, restless, penetrating eyes, a clear musical voice, subdued, but winning manners. She was a little past thirty, though sickness of body or mind had stolen the bloom of early womanhood, and carried her forward, apparently, to the verge of forty. Mrs. Emerson had never before heard of this lady. But half an hour's conversation completely captivated her. Mrs. Lloyd had traveled through Europe, and spoke in a familiar way of the celebrated personages whom she had met abroad,—talked of art, music and architecture, literature, artists and literary men—displayed such high culture and easy acquaintance with themes quite above the range usually met with among ordinary people, that Mrs. Emerson felt really flattered with the compliment of a visit.

"My good friend, Mrs. Talbot," said Mrs. Lloyd, during their conversation, "has spoken of you so warmly that I could do no less than make overtures for an acquaintance, which I trust may prove agreeable. I anticipated the pleasure of seeing you at her house last week, but was disappointed."

"The interview of to-day," remarked Mrs. Talbot, coming in adroitly, "will only make pleasanter your meeting on to-morrow night."

"At your house?" said Mrs. Lloyd.

"Yes." And Mrs. Talbot threw a winning smile upon Mrs. Emerson. "You will be there?"

"I think not," was replied.

"Oh, but you must come, my dear Mrs. Emerson! We cannot do without you."

"I have promised my husband to go out with him."

"Your husband!" The voice of Mrs. Talbot betrayed too plainly her contempt of husbands.

"Yes, my husband." Mrs. Emerson let her voice dwell with meaning on the word.

The other ladies looked at each other for a moment or two with meaning glances; then Mrs. Talbot remarked, in a quiet way, but with a little pleasantry in her voice, as if she were not right clear in regard to her young friend's state of feeling,

"Oh dear! these husbands are dreadfully in the way, sometimes! Haven't you found it so, Mrs. Lloyd?"

The eyes of Mrs. Emerson were turned instantly to the face of her new acquaintance. She saw a slight change of expression in her pale face that took something from its agreeable aspect. And yet Mrs. Lloyd smiled as she answered, in a way meant to be pleasant,

"They are very good in their place."

"The trouble," remarked Mrs. Talbot, in reply, "is to make them keep their place."

"At our feet." Mrs. Emerson laughed as she said this.

"No," answered Mrs. Lloyd—"at our sides, as equals."

"And beyond that," said Mrs. Talbot, "we want them to give us as much freedom in the world as they take for themselves. They come in and go out when they please, and submit to no questioning on our part. Very well; I don't object; only I claim the same right for myself. 'I will ask my husband.' Don't you hear this said every day? Pah! I'm always tempted to cut the acquaintance of a woman when I hear these words from her lips. Does a man, when a friend asks him to do anything or go anywhere, say, 'I'll ask my wife?' Not he. A lady who comes occasionally to our weekly reunions, but whose husband is too much of a man to put himself down to the level of our set, is permitted the enjoyment of an evening with us, now and then, on one condition."

"Condition!" There was a throb of indignant feeling in the voice of Mrs. Lloyd.

"Yes, on condition that no male visitor at my house shall accompany her home. A carriage is sent for her precisely at ten o'clock, when she must leave, and alone."

"Humiliating!" ejaculated Mrs. Lloyd.

"Isn't it? I can scarcely have patience with her. Major Willard has, at my instance, several times made an effort to accompany her, and once actually entered her carriage. But the lady commanded him to retire, or she would leave the carriage herself. Of course, when she took that position, the gallant major had to leave the field."

"Such a restriction would scarce have suited my fancy," said Mrs. Lloyd.

"Nor mine. What do you think of that?" And Mrs. Talbot looked into the face of Mrs. Emerson, whose color had risen beyond its usual tone.

"Circumstances alter cases," replied the latter, crushing out all feeling from her voice and letting it fall into a dead level of indifference.

"But circumstances don't alter facts, my dear. There are the hard facts of restrictions and conditions, made by a man, and applied to his equal, a woman. Does she say to him, You can't go to your club unless you return alone in your carriage, and leave the club-house precisely at ten o'clock? Oh no. He would laugh in her face, or, perhaps, consult the family physician touching her sanity."

This mode of putting the question rather bewildered the mind of our young wife, and she dropped her eyes from those of Mrs. Talbot and sat looking upon the floor in silence.

"Can't you get your husband to release you from this engagement of which you have spoken?" asked Mrs. Lloyd. "I should like above all things to meet you to-morrow evening."

Mrs. Emerson smiled as she answered,

"Husbands have rights, young know, as well as wives. We must consult their pleasure sometimes, as well as our own."

"Certainly—certainly." Mrs. Lloyd spoke with visible impatience.

"I promised to go with my husband to-morrow night," said Mrs. Emerson; "and, much as I may desire to meet you at Mrs. Talbot's, I am not at liberty to go there."

"In bonds! Ah me! Poor wives!" sighed Mrs. Talbot, in affected pity. "Not at liberty! The admission which comes to us from all sides."

She laughed in her gurgling, hollow way as she said this.

"Not bound to my husband, but to my word of promise," replied Mrs. Emerson, as pleasantly as her disturbed feelings would permit her to speak. The ladies were pressing her a little too closely, and she both saw and felt this. They were stepping beyond the bounds of reason and delicacy.

Mrs. Lloyd saw the state of mind which had been produced, and at once changed the subject.

"May I flatter myself with the prospect of having this call returned?" she said, handing Mrs. Emerson her card as she was about leaving.

"It will give me great pleasure to know you better, and you may look to seeing me right early," was the bland reply. And yet Mrs. Emerson was not really attracted by this woman, but, on the contrary, repelled. There was something in her keen, searching eyes, which seemed to be looking right into the thoughts, that gave her a feeling of doubt.

"Thank you. The favor will be all on my side," said Mrs. Lloyd, as she held the hand of Mrs. Emerson and gave it a warm pressure.

The visit of these ladies did not leave the mind of Irene in a very satisfactory state. Some things that were said she rejected, while other things lingered and occasioned suggestions which were not favorable to her husband. While she had no wish to be present at Mrs. Talbot's on account of Major Willard, she was annoyed by the thought that Hartley's fixing on the next evening for her to go out with him was to prevent her attendance at the weekly conversazione.

Irene did not mention to her husband the fact that she had received a visit from Mrs. Talbot, in company with a pleasant stranger, Mrs. Lloyd. It would have been far better for her if she had done so. Many times it was on her lips to mention the call, but as often she kept silent, one or the other of two considerations having influence. Hartley did not like Mrs. Talbot, and therefore the mention of her name, and the fact of her calling, would not be pleasant theme. The other consideration had reference to a woman's independence.

"He doesn't tell me of every man he meets through the day, and why should I feel under obligation to speak of every lady who calls?" So she thought. "As to Mrs. Lloyd, he would have a hundred prying question's to ask, as if I we not competent to judge of the character of my own friends and acquaintances?"

Within a week the call of Mrs. Lloyd was reciprocated by Mrs. Emerson; not in consequence of feeling drawn toward that lady, but she had promised to return the friendly visit, and must keep her word. She found her domiciliated in a fashionable boarding-house, and was received in the common parlor, in which were two or three ladies and a gentleman, besides Mrs. Lloyd. The greeting she received was warm, almost affectionate. In spite of the prejudice that was creeping into her mind in consequence of an unfavorable first impression, Mrs. Emerson was flattered by her reception, and before the termination of her visit she was satisfied that she had not, in the beginning, formed a right estimate of this really fascinating woman.

"I hope to see you right soon," she said, as she bade Mrs. Lloyd good-morning. "It will not be my fault if we do not soon know each other better."

"Nor mine either," replied Mrs. Lloyd. "I think I shall find you just after my own heart."

The voice of Mrs. Lloyd was a little raised as she said this, and Mrs. Emerson noticed that a gentleman who was in the parlor when she entered, but to whom she had not been introduced, turned and looked at her with a steady, curious gaze, which struck her at the time as being on the verge of impertinence.

Only two or three days passed before Mrs. Lloyd returned this visit. Irene found her more interesting than ever. She had seen a great deal of society, and had met, according to her own story, with most of the distinguished men and women of the country, about whom she talked in a very agreeable manner. She described their personal appearance, habits, peculiarities and manners, and related pleasant anecdotes about them. On authors and books she was entirely at home.

But there was an undercurrent of feeling in all she said that a wiser and more experienced woman than Irene would have noted. It was not a feeling of admiration for moral, but for intellectual, beauty. She could dissect a character with wonderful skill, but always passed the quality of goodness as not taken into account. In her view this quality did not seem to be a positive element.

When Mrs. Lloyd went away, she left the mind of Irene stimulated, restless and fluttering with vague fancies. She felt envious of her new friend's accomplishments, and ambitious to move in as wide a sphere as she had compassed. The visit was returned at an early period, and, as before, Mrs. Emerson met Mrs. Lloyd in the public parlor of her boarding-house. The same gentleman whose manner had a little annoyed her was present, and she noticed several times, on glancing toward him, that his eyes were fixed upon her, and with an expression that she did not understand.

After this, the two ladies met every day or two, and sometimes walked Broadway together. The only information that Mrs. Emerson had in regard to her attractive friend she received from Mrs. Talbot. According to her statement, she was a widow whose married life had not been a happy one. The husband, like most husbands, was an overbearing tyrant, and the wife, having a spirit of her own, resisted his authority. Trouble was the consequence, and Mrs. Talbot thought, though she was not certain, that a separation took place before Mr. Lloyd's death. She had a moderate income, which came from her husband's estate, on which she lived in a kind of idle independence. So she had plenty of time to read, visit and enjoy herself in the ways her fancy or inclination might prompt.



CHAPTER XVI.

WEARY OF CONSTRAINT.

TIME moved on, and Mrs. Emerson's intimate city friends were those to whom she had been introduced, directly or indirectly, through Mrs. Talbot. Of these, the one who had most influence over her was Mrs. Lloyd, and that influence was not of the right kind. Singularly enough, it so happened that Mr. Emerson never let this lady at his house, though she spent hours there every week; and, more singular still, Irene had never spoken about her to her husband. She had often been on the point of doing so, but an impression that Hartley would take up an unreasonable prejudice against her kept the name of this friend back from her lips.

Months now succeeded each other without the occurrence of events marked by special interest. Mr. Emerson grew more absorbed in his profession as cases multiplied on his hands, and Irene, interested in her circle of bright-minded, independent-thoughted women, found the days and weeks gliding on pleasantly enough. But habits of estimating things a little differently from the common sentiment, and views of life not by any means consonant with those prevailing among the larger numbers of her sex, were gradually taking root.

Young, inexperienced, self-willed and active in mind, Mrs. Emerson had most unfortunately been introduced among a class of persons whose influence upon her could not fail to be hurtful. Their conversation was mainly of art, literature, social progress and development; the drama, music, public sentiment on leading topics of the day; the advancement of liberal ideas, the necessity of a larger liberty and a wider sphere of action for woman, and the equality of the sexes. All well enough, all to be commended when viewed in their just relation to other themes and interests, but actually pernicious when separated from the homely and useful things of daily life, and made so to overshadow these as to warp them into comparative insignificance. Here lay the evil. It was this elevation of her ideas above the region of use and duty into the mere aesthetic and reformatory that was hurtful to one like Irene—that is, in fact, hurtful to any woman, for it is always hurtful to take away from the mind its interest in common life—the life, we mean, of daily useful work.

Work! We know the word has not a pleasant sound to many ears, that it seems to include degradation, and a kind of social slavery, and lies away down in a region to which your fine, cultivated, intellectual woman cannot descend without, in her view, soiling her garments. But for all this, it is alone in daily useful work of mind or hands, work in which service and benefits to others are involved, that a woman (or a man) gains any true perfection of character. And this work must be her own, must lie within the sphere of her own relations to others, and she must engage in it from a sense of duty that takes its promptings from her own consciousness of right. No other woman can judge of her relation to this work, and she who dares to interfere or turn her aside should be considered an enemy—not a friend.

No wonder, if this be true, that we have so many women of taste, cultivation, and often brilliant intellectual powers, blazing about like comets or shooting stars in our social firmament. They attract admiring attention, excite our wonder, give us themes for conversation and criticism; but as guides and indicators while we sail over the dangerous sea of life, what are they in comparison with some humble star of the sixth magnitude that ever keeps its true place in the heavens, shining on with its small but steady ray, a perpetual blessing? And so the patient, thoughtful, loving wife and mother, doing her daily work for human souls and bodies, though her intellectual powers be humble, and her taste but poorly cultivated, fills more honorably her sphere than any of her more brilliant sisters, who cast off what they consider the shackles by which custom and tyranny have bound them down to mere home duties and the drudgery of household care. If down into these they would bring their superior powers, their cultivated tastes, their larger knowledge, how quickly would some desert homes in our land put on refreshing greenness, and desolate gardens blossom like the rose! We should have, instead of vast imaginary Utopias in the future, model homes in the present, the light and beauty of which, shining abroad, would give higher types of social life for common emulation.

Ah, if the Genius of Social Reform would only take her stand centrally! If she would make the regeneration of homes the great achievement of our day, then would she indeed come with promise and blessing. But, alas! she is so far vagrant in her habits—a fortune-telling gipsy, not a true, loving, useful woman.

Unhappily for Mrs. Emerson, it was the weird-eyed, fortune-telling gipsy whose Delphic utterances had bewildered her mind.

The reconciliation which followed the Christmas-time troubles of Irene and her husband had given both more prudent self-control. They guarded themselves with a care that threw around the manner of each a certain reserve which was often felt by the other as coldness. To both this was, in a degree, painful. There was tender love in their hearts, but it was overshadowed by self-will and false ideas of independence on the one side, and by a brooding spirit of accusation and unaccustomed restraint on the other. Many times, each day of their lives, did words and sentiments, just about to be uttered by Hartley Emerson, die unspoken, lest in them something might appear which would stir the quick feelings of Irene into antagonism.

There was no guarantee of happiness in such a state of things. Mutual forbearance existed, not from self-discipline and tender love, but from fear of consequences. They were burnt children, and dreaded, as well they might, the fire.

With little change in their relations to each other, and few events worthy of notice, a year went by. Mr. Delancy came down to New York several times during this period, spending a few days at each visit, while Irene went frequently to Ivy Cliff, and stayed there, occasionally, as long as two or three weeks. Hartley always came up from the city while Irene was at her father's, but never stayed longer than a single day, business requiring him to be at his office or in court. Mr. Delancy never saw them together without closely observing their manner, tone of speaking and language. Both, he could see, were maturing rapidly. Irene had changed most. There was a style of thinking, a familiarity with popular themes and a womanly confidence in her expression of opinions that at times surprised him. With her views on some subjects his own mind was far from being in agreement, and they often had warm arguments. Occasionally, when her husband was at Ivy Cliff a difference of sentiment would arise between them. Mr. Delancy noticed, when this was the case, that Irene always pressed her view with ardor, and that her husband, after a brief but pleasant combat, retired from the field. He also noticed that in most cases, after this giving up of the contest by Hartley, he was more than usually quiet and seemed to be pondering things not wholly agreeable.

Mr. Delancy was gratified to see that there was no jarring between them. But he failed not at the same time to notice something else that gave him uneasiness. The warmth of feeling, the tenderness, the lover-like ardor which displayed itself in the beginning, no longer existed. They did not even show that fondness for each other which is so beautiful a trait in young married partners. And yet he could trace no signs of alienation. The truth was, the action of their lives had been inharmonious. Deep down in their hearts there was no defect of love. But this love was compelled to hide itself away; and so, for the most part, it lay concealed from even their own consciousness.

During the second year of their married life there came a change of state in both Irene and her husband. They had each grown weary of constraint when together. It was irksome to be always on guard, lest some word, tone or act should be misunderstood. In consequence, old collisions were renewed, and Hartley often grew impatient and even contemptuous toward his wife, when she ventured to speak of social progress, woman's rights, or any of the kindred themes in which she still took a warm interest. Angry retort usually followed on these occasions, and periods of coldness ensued, the effect of which was to produce states of alienation.

If a babe had come to soften the heart of Irene, to turn thought and feeling in a new direction, to awaken a mother's love with all its holy tenderness, how different would all have been!—different with her, and different with him. There would then have been an object on which both could centre interest and affection, and thus draw lovingly together again, and feel, as in the beginning, heart beating to heart in sweet accordings. They would have learned their love-lessons over again, and understood their meanings better. Alas that the angels of infancy found no place in their dwelling!

With no central attraction at home, her thoughts stimulated by association with a class of intellectual, restless women, who were wandering on life's broad desert in search of green places and refreshing springs, each day's journey bearing them farther and farther away from landscapes of perpetual verdure, Irene grew more and more interested in subjects that lay for the most part entirely out of the range of her husband's sympathies; while he was becoming more deeply absorbed in a profession that required close application of thought, intellectual force and clearness, and cold, practical modes of looking at all questions that came up for consideration. The consequence was that they were, in all their common interests, modes of thinking and habits of regarding the affairs of life, steadily receding from each other. Their evenings were now less frequently spent together. If home had been a pleasant place to him, Mr. Emerson would have usually remained at home after the day's duties were over; or, if he went abroad, it would have been usually in company with his wife. But home was getting to be dull, if not positively disagreeable. If a conversation was started, it soon involved disagreement in sentiment, and then came argument, and perhaps ungentle words, followed by silence and a mutual writing down in the mind of bitter things. If there was no conversation, Irene buried herself in a book—some absorbing novel, usually of the heroic school.

Naturally, under this state of things, Mr. Emerson, who was social in disposition, sought companionship elsewhere, and with his own sex. Brought into contact with men of different tastes, feelings and habits of thinking, he gradually selected a few as intimate friends, and, in association with these, formed, as his wife was doing, a social point of interest outside of his home; thus widening still further the space between them.

The home duties involved in housekeeping, indifferently as they had always been discharged by Irene, were now becoming more and more distasteful to her. This daily care about mere eating and drinking seemed unworthy of a woman who had noble aspirations, such as burned in her breast. That was work for women-drudges who had no higher ambition; "and Heaven knows," she would often say to herself, "there are enough and to spare of these."

"What's the use of keeping up an establishment like this just for two people?" she would often remark to her husband; and he would usually reply,

"For the sake of having a home into which one may retire and shut out the world."

Irene would sometimes suggest the lighter expense of boarding.

"If it cost twice as much I would prefer to live in my own house," was the invariable answer.

"But see what a burden of care it lays on my shoulders."

Now Hartley could only with difficulty repress a word of impatient rebuke when this argument was used. He thought of his own daily devotion to business, prolonged often into the night, when an important case was on hand, and mentally charged his wife with a selfish love of ease. On the other hand, it seemed to Irene that her husband was selfish in wishing her to bear the burdens of housekeeping just for his pleasure or convenience, when they might live as comfortably in a hotel or boarding-house.

On this subject Hartley would not enter into a discussion. "It's no use talking, Irene," he would say, when she grew in earnest. "You cannot tempt me to give up my home. It includes many things that with me are essential to comfort. I detest boarding-houses; they are only places for sojourning, not living."

As agreement on this subject was out of the question, Irene did not usually urge considerations in favor of abandoning their pleasant home.



CHAPTER XVII.

GONE FOR EVER!

ONE evening—it was nearly three years from the date of their marriage—Hartley Emerson and his wife were sitting opposite to each other at the centre-table, in the evening. She had a book in her hand and he held a newspaper before his face, but his eyes were not on the printed columns. He had spoken only a few words since he came in, and his wife noticed that he had the manner of one whose mind is in doubt or perplexity.

Letting the newspaper fall upon the table at length, Hartley looked over at his wife and said, in a quiet tone,

"Irene, did you ever meet a lady by the name of Mrs. Lloyd?"

The color mounted to the face of Mrs. Emerson as she replied,

"Yes, I have met her often."

"Since when?"

"I have known her intimately for the past two years."

"What!"

Emerson started to his feet and looked for some moments steadily at his wife, his countenance expressing the profoundest astonishment.

"And never once mentioned to me her name! Has she ever called here?"

"Yes."

"Often?"

"As often as two or three times a week."

"Irene!"

Mrs. Emerson, bewildered at first by her husband's manner of interrogating her, now recovered her self-possession, and, rising, looked steadily at him across the table.

"I am wholly at a loss to understand you," she now said, calmly.

"Have you ever visited that person at her boarding-house?" demanded Hartley.

"I have, often."

"And walked Broadway with her?"

"Certainly."

"Good heavens! can it be possible!" exclaimed the excited man.

"Pray, sir," said Irene, "who is Mrs. Lloyd?"

"An infamous woman!" was answered passionately.

"That is false!" said Irene, her eyes flashing as she spoke. "I don't care who says so, I pronounce the words false!"

Hartley stood still and gazed at his wife for some moments without speaking; then he sat down at the table from which he had arisen and, shading his face with his hands, remained motionless for a long time. He seemed like a man utterly confounded.

"Did you ever hear of Jane Beaufort?" he asked at length, looking up at his wife.

"Oh yes; everybody has heard of her."

"Would you visit Jane Beaufort?"

"Yes, if I believed her innocent of what the world charges against her."

"You are aware, then, that Mrs. Lloyd and Jane Beaufort are the same person?"

"No, sir, I am not aware of any such thing."

"It is true."

"I do not believe it. Mrs. Lloyd I have known intimately for over two years, and can verify her character."

"I am sorry for you, then, for a viler character it would be difficult to find outside the haunts of infamy," said Emerson.

Contempt and anger were suddenly blended in his manner.

"I cannot hear one to whom I am warmly attached thus assailed. You must not speak in that style of my friends, Hartley Emerson!"

"Your friends!" There was a look of intense scorn on his face. "Precious friends, if she represent them, truly! Major Willard is another, mayhap?"

The face of Irene turned deadly pale at the mention of this name.

"Ha!"

Emerson bent eagerly toward his wife.

"And is that true, also?"

"What? Speak out, sir!" Irene caught her breath, and grasped the rein of self-control which had dropped, a moment, from her hands.

"It is said that Major Willard bears you company, at times, in your rides home from evening calls upon your precious friends."

"And you believe the story?"

"I didn't believe it," said Hartley, but in a tone that showed doubt.

"But have changed your mind?"

"If you say it is not true—that Major Willard never entered your carriage—I will take your word in opposition to the whole world's adverse testimony."

But Irene could not answer. Major Willard, as the reader knows, had ridden with her at night, and alone. But once, and only once. A few times since then she had encountered, but never deigned to recognize, him. In her pure heart the man was held in utter detestation.

Now was the time for a full explanation; but pride was aroused—strong, stubborn pride. She knew herself to stand triple mailed in innocency—to be free from weakness or taint; and the thought that a mean, base suspicion had entered the mind of her husband aroused her indignation and put a seal upon her lips as to all explanatory utterances.

"Then I am to believe the worst?" said Hartley, seeing that his wife did not answer. "The worst, and of you!"

The tone in which this was said, as well as the words themselves, sent a strong throb to the heart of Irene. "The worst, and of you!" This from her husband! and involving far more in tone and manner than in uttered language. "Then I am to believe the worst!" She turned the sentences over in her mind. Pride, wounded self-love, a smothered sense of indignation, blind anger, began to gather their gloomy forces in her mind. "The worst, and of you!" How the echoes of these words came back in constant repetition! "The worst, and of you!"

"How often has Major Willard ridden with you at night?" asked Hartley, in a cold, resolute way.

No answer.

"And did you always come directly home?"

Hartley Emerson was looking steadily into the face of his wife, from which he saw the color fall away until it became of an ashen hue.

"You do not care to answer. Well, silence is significative," said the husband, closing his lips firmly. There was a blending of anger, perplexity, pain, sorrow and scorn in his face, all of which Irene read distinctly as she fixed her eyes steadily upon him. He tried to gaze back until her eyes should sink beneath his steady look, but the effort was lost; for not a single instant did they waver.

He was about turning away, when she arrested the movement by saying,

"Go on, Hartley Emerson! Speak of all that is in your mind. You have now an opportunity that may never come again."

There was a dead level in her voice that a little puzzled her husband.

"It is for you to speak," he answered. "I have put my interrogatories."

Unhappily, there was a shade of imperiousness in his voice.

"I never answer insulting interrogatories; not even from the man who calls himself my husband," replied Irene, haughtily.

"It may be best for you to answer," said Hartley. There was just the shadow of menace in his tones.

"Best!" The lip of Irene curled slightly. "On whose account, pray?"

"Best for each of us. Whatever affects one injuriously must affect both."

"Humph! So we are equals!" Irene tossed her head impatiently, and laughed a short, mocking laugh.

"Nothing of that, if you please!" was the husband's impatient retort. The sudden change in his wife's manner threw him off his guard.

"Nothing of what?" demanded Irene.

"Of that weak, silly nonsense. We have graver matters in hand for consideration now."

"Ah?" She threw up her eyebrows, then contracted them again with an angry severity.

"Irene," said Mr. Emerson, his voice falling into a calm but severe tone, "all this is but weakness and folly. I have heard things touching your good name—"

"And believe them," broke in Irene, with angry impatience.

"I have said nothing as to belief or disbelief. The fact is grave enough."

"And you have illustrated your faith in the slander—beautifully, becomingly, generously!"

"Irene!"

"Generously, as a man who knew his wife. Ah, well!" This last ejaculation was made almost lightly, but it involved great bitterness of spirit.

"Do not speak any longer after this fashion," said Hartley, with considerable irritation of manner; "it doesn't suit my present temper. I want something in a very different spirit. The matter is of too serious import. So pray lay aside your trifling. I came to you as I had a right to come, and made inquiries touching your associations when not in my company. Your answers are not satisfactory, but tend rather to con—"

"Sir!" Irene interrupted him in a stern, deep voice, which came so suddenly that the word remained unspoken. Then, raising her finger in a warning manner, she said with menace,

"Beware!"

For some moments they stood looking at each other, more like two animals at bay than husband and wife.

"Touching my associations when not in your company?" said Irene at length, repeating his language slowly.

"Yes," answered the husband.

"Touching, my associations? Well, Mr. Emerson—so far, I say well." She was collected in manner and her voice steady. "But what touching your associations when not in my company?"

The very novelty of this interrogation caused Emerson to start and change color.

"Ha!" The blood leaped to the forehead of Irene, and her eyes, dilating suddenly, almost glared upon the face of her husband.

"Well, sir?" Irene drew her slender form to its utmost height. There was an impatient, demanding tone in her voice. "Speak!" she added, without change of manner. "What touching your associations when not in my company? As a wife, I have some interest in this matter. Away from home often until the brief hours, have I no right to put the question—where and with whom? It would seem so if we are equal. But if I am the slave and dependant—the creature of your will and pleasure—why, that alters the case!"

"Have you done?"

Emerson was recovering from his surprise, but not gaining clear sight or prudent self-possession.

"You have not answered," said Irene, looking coldly, but with glittering eyes, into his face. "Come! If there is to be a mutual relation of acts and associations outside of this our home, let us begin. Sit down, Hartley, and compose yourself. You are the man, and claim precedence. I yield the prerogative. So let me have your confession. After you have ended I will give as faithful a narrative as if on my death-bed. What more can you ask? There now, lead the way!"

This coolness, which but thinly veiled a contemptuous air, irritated Hartley almost beyond the bounds of decent self-control.

"Bravely carried off! Well acted!" he retorted with a sneer.

"You do not accept the proposal," said Irene, growing a little sterner of aspect. "Very well. I scarcely hoped that you would meet me on this even ground. Why should I have hoped it? Were the antecedents encouraging? No! But I am sorry. Ah, well! Husbands are free to go and come at their own sweet will—to associate with anybody and everybody. But wives—oh dear!"

She tossed her head in a wild, scornful way, as if on the verge of being swept from her feet by some whirlwind of passion.

"And so," said her husband, after a long silence, "you do not choose to answer my questions as to Major Willard?"

That was unwisely pressed. In her heart of hearts Irene loathed this man. His name was an offence to her. Never, since the night he had forced himself into her carriage, had she even looked into his face. If he appeared in the room where she happened to be, she did not permit her eyes to rest upon his detested countenance. If he drew near to her, she did not seem to notice his presence. If he spoke to her, as he had ventured several times to do, she paid no regard to him whatever. So far as any response or manifestation of feeling on her part was concerned, it was as if his voice had not reached her ears. The very thought of this man was a foul thing in her mind. No wonder that the repeated reference by her husband was felt as a stinging insult.

"If you dare to mention that name again in connection with mine," she said, turning almost fiercely upon him, "I will—"

She caught the words and held them back in the silence of her wildly reeling thoughts.

"Say on!"

Emerson was cool, but not sane. It was madness to press his excited young wife now. Had he lost sense and discrimination? Could he not see, in her strong, womanly indignation, the signs of innocence? Fool! fool! to thrust sharply at her now!

"My father!" came in a sudden gush of strong feeling from the lips of Irene, as the thought of him whose name was thus ejaculated came into her mind. She struck her hands together, and stood like one in wild bewilderment. "My father!" she added, almost mournfully; "oh, that I had never left you!"

"It would have been better for you and better for me." No, he was not sane, else would no such words have fallen from his lips.

Irene, with a slight start and a slight change in the expression of her countenance, looked up at her husband:

"You think so?" Emerson was a little surprised at the way in which Irene put this interrogation. He looked for a different reply.

"I have said it," was his cold answer.

"Well." She said no more, but looked down and sat thinking for the space of more than a minute.

"I will go back to Ivy Cliff." She looked up, with something strange in the expression of her face. It was a blank, unfeeling, almost unmeaning expression.

"Well." It was Emerson's only response.

"Well; and that is all?" Her tones were so chilling that they came over the spirit of her husband like the low waves of an icy wind.

"No, that is not all." What evil spirit was blinding his perceptions? What evil influence pressing him on to the brink of ruin?

"Say on." How strangely cold and calm she remained! "Say on," she repeated. Was there none to warn him of danger?

"If you go a third time to your father—" He paused.

"Well?" There was not a quiver in her low, clear, icy tone.

"You must do it with your eyes open, and in full view of the consequences."

"What are the consequences?"

Beware, rash man! Put a seal on your lips! Do not let the thought so sternly held find even a shadow of utterance!

"Speak, Hartley Emerson. What are the consequences?"

"You cannot return!" It was said without a quiver of feeling.

"Well." She looked at him with an unchanged countenance, steadily, coldly, piercingly.

"I have said the words, Irene; and they are no idle utterances. Twice you have left me, but you cannot do it a third time and leave a way open between us. Go, then, if you will; but, if we part here, it must be for ever!"

The eyes of Irene dropped slowly. There was a slight change in the expression of her face. Her hands moved one within the other nervously.

For ever! The words are rarely uttered without leaving on the mind a shade of thought. For ever! They brought more than a simple shadow to the mind of Irene. A sudden darkness fell upon her soul, and for a little while she groped about like one who had lost her way. But her husband's threat of consequences, his cold, imperious manner, his assumed superiority, all acted as sharp spurs to pride, and she stood up, strong again, in full mental stature, with every power of her being in full force for action and endurance.

"I go." There was no sign of weakness in her voice. She had raised her eyes from the floor and turned them full upon her husband. Her face was not so pale as it had been a little while before. Warmth had come back to the delicate skin, flushing it with beauty. She did not stand before him an impersonation of anger, dislike or rebellion. There was not a repulsive attitude or expression; no flashing of the eyes, nor even the cold, diamond glitter seen a little while before. Slowly turning away, she left the room; but, to her husband, she seemed still standing there, a lovely vision. There had fallen, in that instant of time, a sunbeam which fixed the image upon his memory in imperishable colors. What though he parted company here with the vital form, that effigy would be, through all time, his inseparable companion!

"Gone!" Hartley Emerson held his breath as the word came into mental utterance. There was a motion of regret in his heart; a wish that he had not spoken quite so sternly—that he had kept back a part of the hard saying. But it was too late now. He could not, after all that had just passed between them—after she had refused to answer his questions touching Major Willard—make any concessions. Come what would, there was to be no retracing of steps now.

"And it may be as well," said he, rallying himself, "that we part here. Our experiment has proved a sad failure. We grow colder and more repellant each day, instead of drawing closer together and becoming more lovingly assimilated. It is not good—this life—for either of us. We struggle in our bonds and hurt each other. Better apart! better apart! Moreover"—his face darkened—"she has fallen into dangerous companionship, and will not be advised or governed. I have heard her name fall lightly from lips that cannot utter a woman's name without leaving it soiled. She is pure now—pure as snow. I have not a shadow of suspicion, though I pressed her close. But this contact is bad; she is breathing an impure atmosphere; she is assorting with some who are sensual and evil-minded, though she will not believe the truth. Mrs. Lloyd! Gracious heavens! My wife the intimate companion of that woman! Seen with her in Broadway! A constant visitor at my house! This, and I knew it not!"

Emerson grew deeply agitated as he rehearsed these things. It was after midnight when he retired. He did not go to his wife's apartment, but passed to a room in the story above that in which he usually slept.

Day was abroad when Emerson awoke the next morning, and the sun shining from an angle that showed him to be nearly two hours above the horizon. It was late for Mr. Emerson. Rising hurriedly, and in some confusion of thought, he went down stairs. His mind, as the events of the last evening began to adjust themselves, felt an increasing sense of oppression. How was he to meet Irene? or was he to meet her again? Had she relented? Had a night of sober reflection wrought any change? Would she take the step he had warned her as a fatal one?

With such questions crowding upon him, Hartley Emerson went down stairs. In passing their chamber-door he saw that it stood wide open, and that Irene was not there. He descended to the parlors and to the sitting-room, but did not find her. The bell announced breakfast; he might find her at the table. No—she was not at her usual place when the morning meal was served.

"Where is Mrs. Emerson?" he asked of the waiter.

"I have not seen her," was replied.

Mr. Emerson turned away and went up to their chambers. His footsteps had a desolate, echoing sound to his ears, as he bent his way thither. He looked through the front and then through the back chamber, and even called, faintly, the name of his wife. But all was still as death. Now a small envelope caught his eye, resting on a casket in which Irene had kept her jewelry. He lifted it, and saw his name inscribed thereon. The handwriting was not strange. He broke the seal and read these few words:

"I have gone. IRENE."

The narrow piece of tinted paper on which this was written dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he stood for some moments still as if death-stricken, and rigid as stone.

"Well," he said audibly, at length, stepping across the floor, "and so the end has come!"

He moved to the full length of the chamber and then stood still—turned, in a little while, and walked slowly back across the floor—stood still again, his face bent down, his lips closely shut, his finger-ends gripped into the palms.

"Gone!" He tried to shake himself free of the partial stupor which had fallen upon him. "Gone!" he repeated. "And so this calamity is upon us! She has dared the fatal leap! has spoken the irrevocable decree! God help us both, for both have need of help; I and she, but she most. God help her to bear the burden she has lifted to her weak shoulders; she will find it a match for her strength. I shall go into the world and bury myself in its cares and duties—shall find, at least, in the long days a compensation in work—earnest, absorbing, exciting work. But she? Poor Irene! The days and nights will be to her equally desolate. Poor Irene! Poor Irene!"



CHAPTER XVIII.

YOUNG, BUT WISE.

THE night had passed wearily for Mr. Delancy, broken by fitful dreams, in which the image of his daughter was always present—dreams that he could trace to no thoughts or impressions of the day before; and he arose unrefreshed, and with a vague sense of trouble in his heart, lying there like a weight which no involuntary deep inspirations would lessen or remove. No June day ever opened in fresher beauty than did this one, just four years since the actors in our drama came smiling before us, in the flush of youth and hope and confidence in the far-off future. The warmth of early summer had sent the nourishing sap to every delicate twig and softly expanding leaf until, full foliaged, the trees around Ivy Cliff stood in kingly attire, lifting themselves up grandly in the sunlight which flooded their gently-waving tops in waves of golden glory. The air was soft and of crystal clearness; and the lungs drank it in as if the draught were ethereal nectar.

On such a morning in June, after a night of broken and unrefreshing sleep, Mr. Delancy walked forth, with that strange pressure on his heart which he had been vainly endeavoring to push aside since the singing birds awoke him, in the faint auroral dawn, with their joyous welcome to the coming day. He drew in long draughts of the delicious air; expanded his chest; moved briskly through the garden; threw his arms about to hurry the sluggish flow of blood in his veins; looked with constrained admiration on the splendid landscape that stretched far and near in the sweep of his vision; but all to no purpose. The hand still lay heavy upon his heart; he could not get it removed.

Returning to the house, feeling more uncomfortable for this fruitless effort to rise above what he tried to call an unhealthy depression of spirits consequent on some morbid state of the body, Mr. Delancy was entering the library, when a fresh young face greeted him with light and smiles.

"Good-morning, Rose," said the old gentleman, as his face brightened in the glow of the young girl's happy countenance. "I am glad to see you;" and he took her hand and held it tightly.

"Good-morning, Mr. Delancy. When did you hear from Irene?"

"Ten days ago."

"She was well?"

"Oh yes. Sit down, Rose; there." And Mr. Delancy drew a chair before the sofa for his young visitor, and took a seat facing her.

"I haven't had a letter from her in six months," said Rose, a sober hue falling on her countenance.

"I don't think she is quite thoughtful enough of her old friends."

"And too thoughtful, it may be, of new ones," replied Mr. Delancy, his voice a little depressed from the cheerful tone in which he had welcomed his young visitor.

"These new friends are not always the best friends, Mr. Delancy."

"No, Rose. For my part, I wouldn't give one old friend, whose heart I had proved, for a dozen untried new ones."

"Nor I, Mr. Delancy. I love Irene. I have always loved her. You know we were children together."

"Yes, dear, I know all that; and I'm not pleased with her for treating you with so much neglect, and all for a set of—"

Mr. Delancy checked himself.

"Irene," said Miss Carman, whom the reader will remember as one of Mrs. Emerson's bridemaids, "has been a little unfortunate in her New York friends. I'm afraid of these strong-minded women, as they are called, among whom she has fallen."

"I detest them!" replied Mr. Delancy, with suddenly aroused feelings. "They have done my child more harm than they will ever do good in the world by way of atonement. She is not my daughter of old."

"I found her greatly changed at our last meeting," said Rose. "Full of vague plans of reforms and social reorganizations, and impatient of opposition, or even mild argument, against her favorite ideas."

"She has lost her way," sighed the old man, in a low, sad voice, "and I'm afraid it will take her a long, long time to get back again to the old true paths, and that the road will be through deep suffering. I dreamed about her all night, Rose, and the shadow of my dreams is upon me still. It is foolish, I know, but I cannot get my heart again into the sunlight."

And Rose had been dreaming troubled dreams of her old friend, also; and it was because of the pressure that lay upon her feelings that she had come over to Ivy Cliff this morning to ask if Mr. Delancy had heard from Irene. She did not, however, speak of this, for she saw that he was in an unhappy state on account of his daughter.

"Dreams are but shadows," she said, forcing a smile to her lips and eyes.

"Yes—yes." The old man responded with an abstracted air. "Yes; they are only shadows. But, my dear, was there ever a shadow without a substance?"

"Not in the outside world of nature. Dreams are unreal things—the fantastic images of a brain where reason sleeps."

"There have been dreams that came as warnings, Rose."

"And a thousand, for every one of these, that signified nothing."

"True. But I cannot rise out of these shadows. They lie too heavily on my spirit. You must bear with me, Rose. Thank you for coming over to see me; but I cannot make your visit a pleasant one, and you must leave me when you grow weary of the old man's company."

"Don't talk so, Mr. Delancy. I'm glad I came over. I meant this only for a call; but as you are in such poor spirits I must stay a while and cheer you up."

"You are a good girl," said Mr. Delancy, taking the hand of Rose, "and I am vexed that Irene should neglect you for the false friends who are leading her mind astray. But never mind, dear; she will see her error one of these days, and learn to prize true hearts."

"Is she going to spend much of her time at Ivy Cliff this summer?" asked Rose.

"She is coming up in July to stay three or four weeks."

"Ah? I'm pleased to hear you say so. I shall then revive old-time memories in her heart."

"God grant that it may be so!" Rose half started at the solemn tone in which Mr. Delancy spoke. What could be the meaning of his strangely troubled manner? Was anything seriously wrong with Irene? She remembered the confusion into which her impulsive conduct had thrown the wedding-party; and there was a vague rumor afloat that Irene had left her husband a few months afterward and returned to Ivy Cliff. But she had always discredited this rumor. Of her life in New York she knew but little as to particulars. That it was not making of her a truer, better, happier woman, nor a truer, better, happier wife, observation had long ago told her.

"There is a broad foundation of good principles in her character," said Miss Carman, "and this gives occasion for hope in the future. She will not go far astray, with her wily enticers, who have only stimulated and given direction, for a time, to her undisciplined impulses. You know how impatient she has always been under control—how restively her spirit has chafed itself when a restraining hand was laid upon her. But there are real things in life of too serious import to be set aside for idle fancies, such as her new friends have dignified with imposing names—real things, that take hold upon the solid earth like anchors, and hold the vessel firm amid wildly rushing currents."

"Yes, Rose, I know all that," replied Mr. Delancy. "I have hope in the future of Irene; but I shudder in heart to think of the rough, thorny, desolate ways through which she may have to pass with bleeding feet before she reaches that serene future. Ah! if I could save my child from the pain she seems resolute on plucking down and wearing in her heart!"

"Your dreams have made you gloomy, Mr. Delancy," said Rose, forcing a smile to her sweet young face. "Come now, let us be more hopeful. Irene has a good husband. A little too much like her in some things, but growing manlier and broader in mental grasp, if I have read him aright. He understands Irene, and, what is more, loves her deeply. I have watched them closely."

"So have I." The voice of Mr. Delancy was not so hopeful as that of his companion.

"Still looking on the darker side." She smiled again.

"Ah, Rose, my wise young friend," said Mr. Delancy, "to whom I speak my thoughts with a freedom that surprises even myself, a father's eyes read many signs that have no meaning for others."

"And many read them, through fond suspicion, wrong," replied Rose.

"Well—yes—that may be." He spoke in partial abstraction, yet doubtfully.

"I must look through your garden," said the young lady, rising; "you know how I love flowers."

"Not much yet to hold your admiration," replied Mr. Delancy, rising also. "June gives us wide green carpets and magnificent draperies of the same deep color, but her red and golden broideries are few; it is the hand of July that throws them in with rich profusion."

"But June flowers are sweetest and dearest—tender nurslings of the summer, first-born of her love," said Rose, as they stepped out into the portico. "It may be that the eye gets sated with beauty, as nature grows lavish of her gifts; but the first white and red petals that unfold themselves have a more delicate perfume—seem made of purer elements and more wonderful in perfection—than their later sisters. Is it not so?"

"If it only appears so it is all the same as if real," replied Mr. Delancy, smiling.

"How?"

"It is real to you. What more could you have? Not more enjoyment of summer's gifts of beauty and sweetness."

"No; perhaps not."

Rose let her eyes fall to the ground, and remained silent.

"Things are real to us as we see them; not always as they are," said Mr. Delancy.

"And this is true of life?"

"Yes, child. It is in life that we create for ourselves real things out of what to some are airy nothings. Real things, against which we often bruise or maim ourselves, while to others they are as intangible as shadows."

"I never thought of that," said Rose.

"It is true."

"Yes, I see it. Imaginary evils we thus make real things, and hurt ourselves by contact, as, maybe, you have done this morning, Mr. Delancy."

"Yes—yes. And false ideas of things which are unrealities in the abstract—for only what is true has actual substance—become real to the perverted understanding. Ah, child, there are strange contradictions and deep problems in life for each of us to solve."

"But, God helping us, we may always reach the true solution," said Rose Carman, lifting a bright, confident face to that of her companion.

"That was spoken well, my child," returned Mr. Delancy, with a new life in his voice; "and without Him we can never be certain of our way."

"Never—never." There was a tender, trusting solemnity in the voice of Rose.

"Young, but wise," said Mr. Delancy.

"No! Young, but not wise. I cannot see the way plain before me for a single week, Mr. Delancy. For a week? No, not for a day!"

"Who does?" asked the old man.

"Some."

"None. There are many who walk onward with erect heads and confident bearing. They are sure of their way, and smile if one whisper a caution as to the ground upon which they step so fearlessly. But they soon get astray or into pitfalls. God keeping and guiding us, Rose, we may find our way safely through this world. But we will soon lose ourselves if we trust in our own wisdom."

Thus they talked—that old man and gentle-hearted girl—as they moved about the garden-walks, every new flower, or leaf, or opening bud they paused to admire or examine, suggesting themes for wiser words than usually pass between one so old and one so young. At Mr. Delancy's earnest request, Rose stayed to dinner, the waiting-man being tent to her father's, not far distant, to take word that she would not be at home until in the afternoon.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE SHIPWRECKED LIFE.

OFTEN, during that morning, did the name of Irene come to their lips, for the thought of her was all the while present to both.

"You must win her heart back again, Rose," said Mr. Delancy. "I will lure her to Ivy Cliff often this summer, and keep her here as long as possible each time. You will then be much together." They had risen from the dinner-table and were entering the library.

"Things rarely come out as we plan them," answered Rose. "But I love Irene truly, and will make my own place in her heart again, if she will give me the key of entrance."

"You must find the key, Rose."

Miss Carman smiled.

"I said if she would give it to me."

"She does not carry the key that opens the door for you," replied Mr. Delancy. "If you do not know where it lies, search for it in the secret places of your own mind, and it will be found, God helping you, Rose."

Mr. Delancy looked at her significantly.

"God helping me," she answered, with a reverent sinking of her voice, "I will find the key."

"Who is that?" said Mr. Delancy, in a tone of surprise, turning his face to the window.

Rose followed his eyes, but no one was visible.

"I saw, or thought I saw, a lady cross the portico this moment."

Both stood still, listening and expectant.

"It might have been fancy," said Mr. Delancy, drawing a deep breath.

Rose stepped to one of the library windows, and throwing it up, looked out upon the portico.

"There is no one," she remarked, coming back into the room.

"Could I have been so mistaken?"

Mr. Delancy looked bewildered.

Seeing that the impression was so strong on his mind, Miss Carman went out into the hall, and glanced from there into the parlor and dining-room.

"No one came in, Mr. Delancy," she said, on returning to the library.

"A mere impression," remarked the old man, soberly. "Well, these impressions are often very singular. My face was partly turned to the window, so that I saw out, but not so distinctly as if both eyes had been in the range of vision. The form of a woman came to my sight as distinctly as if the presence had been real—the form of a woman going swiftly past the window."

"Did you recognize the form?"

It was some time before Mr. Delancy replied.

"Yes." He looked anxious.

"You thought of Irene?"

"I did."

"We have talked and thought of Irene so much to-day," said Rose, "that your thought of her has made you present to her mind with more than usual distinctness. Her thought of you has been more intent in consequence, and this has drawn her nearer. You saw her by an inward, not by an outward, vision. She is now present with you in spirit, though her body be many miles distant. These things often happen. They startle us by their strangeness, but are as much dependent on laws of the mind as bodily nearness is dependent on the laws of matter."

"You think so?" Mr. Delancy looked at his young companion curiously.

"Yes, I think so."

The old man shook his head. "Ingenious, but not satisfactory."

"You will admit," said Rose, "that as to our minds we may be present in any part of the world, and in an instant of time, though our bodies move not."

"Our thought may be," replied Mr. Delancy. "Or, in better words, the eyes of our minds may be; for it is the eyes that see objects," said Rose.

"Well; say the eyes of our minds, then."

"We cannot see objects in London, for instance, with our bodily eyes unless our bodies be in London?" resumed Rose.

"Of course not."

"Nor with our mental eyes, unless our spirits be there."

Mr. Delancy looked down thoughtfully.

"It must be true, then, that our thought of any one brings us present to that individual, and that such presence is often recognized."

"That is pushing the argument too far."

"I think not. Has it not often happened that suddenly the thought of an absent one came into your mind, and that you saw him or her for a moment or two almost as distinctly as if in bodily presence before you?"

"Yes. That has many times been the case."

"And you had not been thinking of that person, nor had there been any incident as a reminder?"

"I believe not."

"My explanation is, that this person from some cause had been led to think of you intently, and so came to you in spirit. There was actual presence, and you saw each other with the eyes of your minds."

"But, my wise reasoner," said Mr. Delancy, "it was the bodily form—with face, eyes, hands, feet and material garments—that was seen, not the spirit. If our spirits have eyes that see, why they can only see spiritual things."

"Has not a spirit a face, and hands, and feet?" asked Rose, with a confidence that caused the old man to look at her almost wonderingly.

"Not a face, and hands, and feet like these of mine," he answered.

"Yes, like them," she replied, "but of spiritual substance."

"Spiritual substance! That is a novel term. This is substance." And Mr. Delancy grasped the arm of a chair.

"No, that is material and unsubstantial," she calmly replied; "it is subject to change and decay. A hundred years from now and there may be no visible sign that it had ever been. But the soul is imperishable and immortal; the only thing about man that is really substantial. And now," she added, "for the faces of our spirits. What gives to our natural faces their form, beauty and expression? Is it not the soul-face within? Remove that by death, and all life, thought and feeling are gone from the stolid effigy. And so you see, Mr. Delancy, that our minds must be formed of spiritual substance, and that our bodies are but the outward material clothing which the soul puts on for action and use in this world of nature."

"Why, you are a young philosopher!" exclaimed Mr. Delancy, looking in wonder at his fair companion.

"No," she answered, with simplicity, "I talk with my father about these things, and it all seems very plain to me. I cannot see how any one can question what appears to me so plain. That the mind is substantial we see from this fact alone—it retains impressions longer than the body."

"You think so?"

"Take an instance," said Rose. "A boy is punished unjustly by a passionate teacher, who uses taunting words as well as smarting blows. Now the pain of these blows is gone in less than an hour, but the word-strokes received on his spirit hurt him, maybe, to the end of his mortal life. Is it not so? And if so, why? There must be substance to hold impressions so long."

"You silence, if you do not fully convince," replied Mr. Delancy. "I must dream over what you have said. And so your explanation is, that my thought of Irene has turned her thought to me, and thus we became really present?"

"Yes."

"And that I saw her just now by an inner, and not by an outer, sight?"

"Yes."

"But why was the appearance an outward manifestation, so to speak?"

"Sight is in the mind, even natural sight. The eye does not go out to a tree, but the image of the tree comes to the eye, and thence is presented, in a wonderful and mysterious way, to the mind, which takes note of its form. The appearance is, that the soul looks out at the tree; but the fact is, the image of the tree comes to the brain, and is there seen. Now the brain may be impressed, and respond by natural vision, from an internal as well as from an external communication. We see this in cases of visual aberrations, the instances of which given in books, and clearly authenticated, are innumerable. Things are distinctly seen in a room which have no existence in nature; and the illusion is so perfect that it seems impossible for eyes to be mistaken."

"Well, well, child," said Mr. Delancy, "this is curious, and a little bewildering. Perhaps it is all just as you say about Irene; but I feel very heavy here;" and he laid his hand on his breast and sighed deeply.

At this moment the library door was pushed gently open, and the form of a woman stood in the presence of Mr. Delancy and Rose. She was dressed in a dark silk, but had on neither bonnet nor shawl. Both started; Mr. Delancy raised his hands and bent forward, gazing at her eagerly, his lips apart. The face of the woman was pale and haggard, yet familiar as the face of an old friend; but in it was something so strange and unnatural that for a moment or two it was not recognized.

"Father!" It was Irene. She advanced quietly and held but her hand.

"My daughter!" He caught the extended hand and kissed her, but she showed no emotion.

"Rose, dear, I am glad to see you." There was truth in the dead level tone with which "I am glad to see you" was spoken, and Rose, who perceived this, took her hand and kissed her. Both hands and lips were cold.

"What's the matter, Irene? Have you been sick?" asked Mr. Delancy, in a choking voice.

"No, father, I'm very well." You would never have recognized that voice as the voice of Irene.

"No, child, you are not well. What ails you? Why are you here in so strange a way and looking so strangely?"

"Do I look strangely?" There was a feeble effort to awaken a smile, which only gave her face a ghastly expression.

"Is Hartley with you?"

"No." Her voice was fuller and more emphatic as she uttered this word. She tried to look steadily at her father, but her eyes moved aside from the range of his vision.

For a little while there was a troubled silence with all. Rose had placed an arm around the waist of Irene and drawn her to the sofa, on which they were now sitting; Mr. Delancy stood before them. Gradually the cold, almost blank, expression of Irene's face changed and the old look came back.

"My daughter," said Mr. Delancy.

"Father"—Irene interrupted him—"I know what you are going to say. My sudden, unannounced appearance, at this time, needs explanation. I am glad dear Rose is here—my old, true friend"—and she leaned against Miss Carman—"I can trust her."

The arm of Rose tightened around the waist of Irene.

"Father"—the voice of Irene fell to a deep, solemn tone; there was no emphasis on one word more than on another; all was a dead level; yet the meaning was as full and the involved purpose as fixed as if her voice had run through the whole range of passionate intonation—"Father, I have come back to Ivy Cliff and to you, after having suffered shipwreck on the voyage of life. I went out rich, as I supposed, in heart-treasures; I come back poor. My gold was dross, and the sea has swallowed up even that miserable substitute for wealth. Hartley and I never truly loved each other, and the experiment of living together as husband and wife has proved a failure. We have not been happy; no, not from the beginning. We have not even been tolerant or forbearing toward each other. A steady alienation has been in progress day by day, week by week, and month by month, until no remedy is left but separation. That has been, at length, applied, and here I am! It is the third time that I have left him, and to both of us the act is final. He will not seek me, and I shall not return."

There had come a slight flush to the countenance of Irene before she commenced speaking, but this retired again, and she looked deathly pale. No one answered her—only the arm of Rose tightened like a cord around the waist of her unhappy friend.

"Father," and now her voice fluttered a little, "for your sake I am most afflicted. I am strong enough to bear my fate—but you!"

There was a little sob—a strong suppression of feeling—and silence.

"Oh, Irene! my child! my child!" The old man covered his face with his hands, sobbed, and shook like a fluttering leaf. "I cannot bear this! It is too much for me!" and he staggered backward. Irene sprung forward and caught him in her arms. He would have fallen, but for this, to the floor. She stood clasping and kissing him wildly, until Rose came forward and led them both to the sofa.

Mr. Delancy did not rally from this shock. He leaned heavily against his daughter, and she felt a low tremor in his frame.

"Father!" She spoke tenderly, with her lips to his ear. "Dear father!"

But he did not reply.

"It is my life-discipline, father," she said; "I will be happier and better, no doubt, in the end for this severe trial. Dear father, do not let what is inevitable so break down your heart. You are my strong, brave, good father, and I shall need now more than ever, your sustaining arm. There was no help for this. It had to come, sooner or later. It is over now. The first bitterness is past. Let us be thankful for that, and gather up our strength for the future. Dear father! Speak to me!"

Mr. Delancy tried to rally himself, but he was too much broken down by the shock. He said a few words, in which there was scarcely any connection of ideas, and then, getting up from the sofa, walked about the room, turning one of his hands within the other in a distressed way.

"Oh dear, dear, dear!" he murmured to himself, in a feeble manner. "I have dreaded this, and prayed that it might not be. Such wretchedness and disgrace! Such wretchedness and disgrace! Had they no patience with each other—no forbearance—no love, that it must come to this? Dear! dear! dear! Poor child!"

Irene, with her white, wretched face, sat looking at him for some time, as he moved about, a picture of helpless misery; then, going to him again, she drew an arm around his neck and tried to comfort him. But there was no comfort in her words. What could she say to reach with a healing power the wound from which his very life-blood was pouring.

"Don't talk! don't talk!" he said, pushing Irene away, with slight impatience of manner. "I am heart-broken. Words are nothing!"

"Mr. Delancy," said Rose, now coming to his side, and laying a hand upon his arm, "you must not speak so to Irene. This is not like you."

There was a calmness of utterance and a firmness of manner which had their right effect.

"How have I spoken, Rose, dear? What have I said?" Mr. Delancy stopped and looked at Miss Carman in a rebuked, confused way, laying his hand upon his forehead at the same time.

"Not from yourself," answered Rose.

"Not from myself!" He repeated her words, as if his thoughts were still in a maze. "Ah, child, this is dreadful!" he added. "I am not myself! Poor Irene! Poor daughter! Poor father!"

And the old man lost himself again.

A look of fear now shadowed darkly the face of Irene, and she glanced anxiously from her father's countenance to that of Rose. She did not read in the face of her young friend much that gave assurance or comfort.

"Mr. Delancy," said Rose, with great earnestness of manner, "Irene is in sore trouble. She has come to a great crisis in her life. You are older and wiser than she is, and must counsel and sustain her. Be calm, dear sir—calm, clear-seeing, wise and considerate, as you have always been."

"Calm—clear-seeing—wise." Mr. Delancy repeated the words, as if endeavoring to grasp the rein of thought and get possession of himself again.

"Wise to counsel and strong to sustain," said Rose. "You must not fail us now."

"Thank you, my sweet young monitor," replied Mr. Delancy, partially recovering himself; "it was the weakness of a moment. Irene," and he looked toward his daughter, "leave me with my own thoughts for a little while. Take her, Rose, to her own room, and God give you power to speak words of consolation; I have none."

Rose drew her arm within that of Irene, and said, "Come." But Irene lingered, looking tenderly and anxiously at her father.

"Go, my love." Mr. Delancy waved his hand.

"Father! dear father!" She moved a step toward him, while Rose held her back.

"I cannot help myself, father. The die is cast. Oh bear up with me! I will be to you a better daughter than I have ever been. My life shall be devoted to your happiness. In that I will find a compensation. All is not lost—all is not ruined. My heart is as pure as when I left you three years ago. I come back bleeding from my life-battle it is true, but not in mortal peril—wounded, but not unto death—cast down, but not destroyed."

All the muscles of Mr. Delancy's face quivered with suppressed feeling as he stood looking at his daughter, who, as she uttered the words, "cast down, but not destroyed," flung herself in wild abandonment on his breast.



CHAPTER XX.

THE PALSIED HEART.

THE shock to Mr. Delancy was a fearful one, coming as it did on a troubled, foreboding state of mind; and reason lost for a little while her firm grasp on the rein of government. If the old man could have seen a ray of hope in the case it would have been different. But from the manner and language of his daughter it was plain that the dreaded evil had found them; and the certainty of this falling suddenly, struck him as with a heavy blow.

For several days he was like one who had been stunned. All that afternoon on which his daughter returned to Ivy Cliff he moved about in a bewildered way, and by his questions and remarks showed an incoherence of thought that filled the heart of Irene with alarm.

On the next morning, when she met him at the breakfast-table, he smiled on her in his old affectionate way. As she kissed him, she said,

"I hope you slept well last night, father?"

A slight change was visible in his face.

"I slept soundly enough," he replied, "but my dreams were not agreeable."

Then he looked at her with a slight closing of the brows and a questioning look in his eyes.

They sat down, Irene taking her old place at the table. As she poured out her father's coffee, he said, smiling,

"It is pleasant to have you sitting there, daughter."

"Is it?"

Irene was troubled by this old manner of her father. Could he have forgotten why she was there?

"Yes, it is pleasant," he replied, and then his eye dropped in a thoughtful way.

"I think, sometimes, that your attractive New York friends have made you neglectful of your lonely old father. You don't come to see him as often as you did a year ago."

Mr. Delancy said this with simple earnestness.

"They shall not keep me from you any more, dear father," replied Irene, meeting his humor, yet heart-appalled at the same time with this evidence that his mind was wandering from the truth.

"I don't think them safe friends," added Mr. Delancy, with seriousness.

"Perhaps not," replied Irene.

"Ah! I'm glad to hear you say so. Now, you have one true, safe friend. I wish you loved her better than you do."

"What is her name?"

"Rose Carman," said Mr. Delancy, with a slight hesitation of manner, as if he feared repulsion on the part of his daughter.

"I love Rose, dearly; she is the best of girls; and I know her to be a true friend," replied Irene.

"Spoken like my own daughter!" said the old man with a brightening countenance. "You must not neglect her any more. Why, she told me you hadn't written to her in six months. Now, that isn't right. Never go past old, true friends for the sake of new, and maybe false ones. No—no. Rose is hurt; you must write to her often—every week."

Irene could not answer. Her heart was beating wildly. What could this mean? Had reason fled? But she struggled hard to preserve a calm exterior.

"Will Hartley be up to-day?"

Irene tried to say "No," but could not find utterance.

Mr. Delancy looked at her curiously, and now in a slightly troubled way. Then he let his eyes fall, and sat holding his cup like one who was turning perplexed thoughts in his mind.

"You are not well this morning, father," said Irene, speaking only because silence was too oppressive for endurance.

"I don't know; perhaps I'm not very well;" and Mr. Delancy looked across the table at his daughter very earnestly. "I had bad dreams all last night, and they seem to have got mixed up in my thoughts with real things. How is it? When did you come up from New York? Don't smile at me. But really I can't think."

"I came yesterday," said Irene, as calmly as she could speak.

"Yesterday!" He looked at her with a quickly changing face.

"Yes, father, I came up yesterday."

"And Rose was here?"

"Yes."

Mr. Delancy's eyes fell again, and he sat very still.

"Hartley will not be here to-day?"

Mr. Delancy did not look up as he asked this question.

"No, father."

"Nor to-morrow?"

"I think not."

A sigh quivered on the old man's lips.

"Nor the day after that?"

"He did not say when he was coming," replied Irene, evasively.

"Did not say when? Did not say when?" Mr. Delancy repeated the sentence two or three times, evidently trying all the while to recall something which had faded from his memory.

"Don't worry yourself about Hartley," said Irene, forcing herself to pronounce a name that seemed like fire on her lips. "Isn't it enough that I am here?"

"No, it is not enough." And her father put his hand to his forehead and looked upward in an earnest, searching manner.

What could Irene say? What could she do? The mind of her father was groping about in the dark, and she was every moment in dread lest he should discover the truth and get farther astray from the shock.

No food was taken by either Mr. Delancy or his daughter. The former grew more entangled in his thoughts, and finally arose from the table, saying, in a half-apologetic way,

"I don't know what ails me this morning."

"Where are you going?" asked Irene, rising at the same time.

"Nowhere in particular. The air is close here—I'll sit a while in the portico," he answered, and throwing open one of the windows he stepped outside. Irene followed him.

"How beautiful!" said Mr. Delancy, as he sat down and turned his eyes upon the attractive landscape. Irene did not trust her voice in reply.

"Now go in and finish your breakfast, child. I feel better; I don't know what came over me." He added the last sentence in an undertone.

Irene returned into the house, but not to resume her place at the table. Her mind was in an agony of dread. She had reached the dining-room, and was about to ring for a servant, when she heard her name called by her father. Running back quickly to the portico, she found him standing in the attitude of one who had been suddenly startled; his face all alive with question and suspense.

"Oh, yes! yes! I thought you were here this moment! And so it's all true?" he said, in a quick, troubled way.

"True? What is true, father?" asked Irene, as she paused before him.

"True, what you told me yesterday."

She did not answer.

"You have left your husband?" He looked soberly into her face.

"I have, father." She thought it best to use no evasion.

He groaned, sat down in the chair from which he had arisen, and let his head fall upon his bosom.

"Father!" Irene kneeled before him and clasped his hands. "Father! dear father!"

He laid a hand on her head, and smoothed her hair in a caressing manner.

"Poor child! poor daughter!" he said, in a fond, pitying voice, "don't take it so to heart. Your old father loves you still."

She could not stay the wild rush of feeling that was overmastering her. Passionate sobs heaved her breast, and tears came raining from her eyes.

"Now, don't, Irene! Don't take on so, daughter! I love you still, and we will be happy here, as in other days."

"Yes, father," said Irene, holding down her head and calming her voice, "we will be happy here, as in the dear old time. Oh we will be very happy together. I won't leave you any more."

"I wish you had never left me," he answered, mournfully; "I was always afraid of this—always afraid. But don't let it break your heart; I'm all the same; nothing will ever turn me against you. I hope he hasn't been very unkind to you?" His voice grew a little severe.

"We wont say anything against him," replied Irene, trying to understand exactly her father's state of mind and accommodate herself thereto. "Forgive and forget is the wisest rule always."

"Yes, dear, that's it. Forgive and forget—forgive and forget. There's nothing like it in this world. I'm glad to hear you talk so."

The mind of Mr. Delancy did not again wander from the truth. But the shock received when it first came upon him with stunning force had taken away his keen perception of the calamity. He was sad, troubled and restless, and talked a great deal about the unhappy position of his daughter—sometimes in a way that indicated much incoherence of thought. To this state succeeded one of almost total silence, and he would sit for hours, if not aroused from reverie and inaction by his daughter, in apparent dreamy listlessness. His conversation, when he did talk on any subject, showed, however, that his mind had regained its old clearness.

On the third day after Irene's arrival at Ivy Cliff, her trunks came up from New York. She had packed them on the night before leaving her husband's house, and marked them with her name and that of her father's residence. No letter or message accompanied them. She did not expect nor desire any communication, and was not therefore disappointed, but rather relieved from what would have only proved a cause of disturbance. All angry feelings toward her husband had subsided; but no tender impulses moved in her heart, nor did the feeblest thought of reconciliation breathe over the surface of her mind. She had been in bonds; now the fetters were cast off, and she loved freedom too well to bend her neck again to the yoke.

No tender impulses moved, we have said, in her heart, for it lay like a palsied thing, dead in her bosom—dead, we mean, so far as the wife was concerned. It was not so palsied on that fatal evening when the last strife with her husband closed. But in the agony that followed there came, in mercy, a cold paralysis; and now toward Hartley Emerson her feelings were as calm as the surface of a frozen lake.

And how was it with the deserted husband? Stern and unyielding also. The past year had been marked by so little of mutual tenderness, there had been so few passages of love between them—green spots in the desert of their lives—that memory brought hardly a relic from the past over which the heart could brood. For the sake of worldly appearances, Emerson most regretted the unhappy event. Next, his trouble was for Irene and her father, but most for Irene.

"Willful, wayward one!" he said many, many times. "You, of all, will suffer most. No woman can take a step like this without drinking of pain to the bitterest dregs. If you can hide the anguish, well. But I fear the trial will be too hard for you—the burden too heavy. Poor, mistaken one!"

For a month the household arrangements of Mr. Emerson continued as when Irene left him. He did not intermit for a day or an hour his business duties, and came home regularly at his usual times—always, it must be said, with a feeble expectation of meeting his wife in her old places; we do not say desire, but simply expectation. If she had returned, well. He would not have repulsed, nor would he have received her with strong indications of pleasure. But a month went by, and she did not return nor send him any word. Beyond the brief "I have gone," there had come from her no sign.