Two months elapsed, and then Mr. Emerson dismissed the servants and shut up the house, but he neither removed nor sold the furniture; that remained as it was for nearly a year, when he ordered a sale by auction and closed the establishment.

Hartley Emerson, under the influence of business and domestic trouble, matured rapidly, and became grave, silent and reflective beyond men of his years. Companionable he was by nature, and during the last year that Irene was with him, failing to receive social sympathy at home, he had joined a club of young men, whose association was based on a declared ambition for literary excellence. From this club he withdrew himself; it did not meet the wants of his higher nature, but offered much that stimulated the grosser appetites and passions. Now he gave himself up to earnest self-improvement, and found in the higher and wider range of thought which came as the result a partial compensation for what he had lost. But he was not happy; far, very far from it. And there were seasons when the past came back upon him in such a flood that all the barriers of indifference which he had raised for self-protection were swept away, and he had to build them up again in sadness of spirit. So the time wore on with him, and troubled life-experiences were doing their work upon his character.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE IRREVOCABLE DECREE.

IT is two years since the day of separation between Irene and her husband. Just two years. And she is sitting in the portico at Ivy Cliff with her father, looking down upon the river that lies gleaming in sunshine—not thinking of the river, however, nor of anything in nature.

They are silent and still—very still, as if sleep had locked their senses. He is thin and wasted as from long sickness, and she looks older by ten years. There is no fine bloom on her cheeks, from which the fullness of youth has departed.

It is a warm June day, the softest, balmiest, brightest day the year has given. The air comes laden with delicate odors and thrilling with bird melodies, and, turn the eye as it will, there is a feast of beauty.

Yet, the odors are not perceived, nor the music heard, nor the beauty seen by that musing old man and his silent daughter. Their thoughts are not in the present, but far back in the unhappy past, the memories of which, awakened by the scene and season, have come flowing in a strong tide upon them.

Two years! They have left the prints of their heavy feet upon the life of Irene, and the deep marks will never be wholly obliterated. She were less than human if this were not so. Two years! Yet, not once in that long, heart-aching time had she for a single moment looked backward in weakness. Sternly holding to her act as right, she strengthened herself in suffering, and bore her pain as if it were a decree of fate. There was no anger in her heart, nor anything of hardness toward her husband. But there was no love, nor tender yearning for conjunction—at least, nothing recognized as such in her own consciousness.

Not since the days Irene left the house of her husband had she heard from him directly; and only two or three times indirectly. She had never visited the city since her flight therefrom, and all her pleasant and strongly influencing associations there were, in consequence, at an end. Once her very dear friend Mrs. Talbot came up to sympathize with and strengthen her in the fiery trial through which she was passing. She found Irene's truer friend, Rosa Carman, with her; and Rose did not leave them alone for a moment at a time. All sentiments that she regarded as hurtful to Irene in her present state of mind she met with her calm, conclusive mode of reasoning, that took away the specious force of the sophist's dogmas. But her influence was chiefly used in the repression of unprofitable themes, and the introduction of such as tended to tranquilize the feelings, and turn the thoughts of her friend away from the trouble that was lying upon her soul like a suffocating nightmare. Mrs. Talbot was not pleased with her visit, and did not come again. But she wrote several times. The tone of her letters was not, however, pleasant to Irene, who was disturbed by it, and more bewildered than enlightened by the sentiments that were announced with oracular vagueness. These letters were read to Miss Carman, on whom Irene was beginning to lean with increasing confidence. Rose did not fail to expose their weakness or fallacy in such clear light that Irene, though she tried to shut her eyes against the truth presented by Rose, could not help seeing it. Her replies were not, under these circumstances, very satisfactory, for she was unable to speak in a free, assenting, confiding spirit. The consequence was natural. Mrs. Talbot ceased to write, and Irene did not regret the broken correspondence. Once Mrs. Lloyd wrote. When Irene broke the seal and let her eyes rest upon the signature, a shudder of repulsion ran through her frame, and the letter dropped from her hands to the floor. As if possessed by a spirit whose influence over her she could not control, she caught up the unread sheet and threw it into the fire. As the flames seized upon and consumed it, she drew a long breath and murmured,

"So perish the memory of our acquaintance!"

Almost a dead letter of suffering had been those two years. There are no events to record, and but little progress to state. Yes, there had been a dead level of suffering—a palsied condition of heart and mind; a period of almost sluggish endurance, in which pride and an indomitable will gave strength to bear.

Mr. Delancy and his daughter were sitting, as we have seen, on that sweet June day, in silent abstraction of thought, when the serving-man, who had been to the village, stepped into the portico and handed Irene a letter. The sight of it caused her heart to leap and the blood to crimson suddenly her face. It was not an ordinary letter—one in such a shape had never come to her hand before.

"What is that?" asked her father, coming back as it were to life.

"I don't know," she answered, with an effort to appear indifferent.

Mr. Delancy looked at his daughter with a perplexed manner, and then let his eyes fall upon the legal envelope in her hand, on which a large red seal was impressed.

Rising in a quiet way, Irene left the portico with slow steps; but no sooner was she beyond her father's observation than she moved toward her chamber with winged feet.

"Bless me, Miss Irene!" exclaimed Margaret, who met her on the stairs, "what has happened?"

But Irene swept by her without a response, and, entering her room, shut the door and locked it. Margaret stood a moment irresolute, and then, going back to her young lady's chamber, knocked for admission. There was no answer to her summons, and she knocked again.

"Who is it?"

She hardly knew the voice.

"It is Margaret. Can't I come in?"

"Not now," was answered.

"What's the matter, Miss Irene?"

"Nothing, Margaret. I wish to be alone now."

"Something has happened, though, or you'd never look just like that," said Margaret to herself, as she went slowly down stairs. "Oh dear, dear! Poor child! there's nothing but trouble for her in this world."

It was some minutes before Irene found courage to break the imposing seal and look at the communication within. She guessed at the contents, and was not wrong. They informed her, in legal phrase, that her husband had filed an application for a divorce on the ground of desertion, and gave notice that any resistance to this application must be on file on or before a certain date.

The only visible sign of feeling that responded to this announcement was a deadly paleness and a slight, nervous crushing of the paper in her hands. Moveless as a thing inanimate, she sat with fixed, dreamy eyes for a long, long time.

A divorce! She had looked for this daily for more than a year, and often wondered at her husband's tardiness. Had she desired it? Ah, that is the probing question. Had she desired an act of law to push them fully asunder—to make the separation plenary in all respects? No. She did not really wish for the irrevocable sundering decree.

Since her return to her father's house, the whole life of Irene had been marked by great circumspection. The trial through which she had passed was enough to sober her mind and turn her thoughts in some new directions; and this result had followed. Pride, self-will and impatience of control found no longer any spur to reactive life, and so her interest in woman's rights, social reforms and all their concomitants died away, for lack of a personal bearing. At first there had been warm arguments with Miss Carman on these subjects, but these grew gradually less earnest, and were finally avoided by both, as not only unprofitable, but distasteful. Gradually this wise and true friend had quickened in the mind of Irene an interest in things out of herself. There are in every neighborhood objects to awaken our sympathies, if we will only look at and think of them. "The poor ye have always with you." Not the physically poor only, but, in larger numbers, the mentally and spiritually poor. The hands of no one need lie idle a moment for lack of work, for it is no vague form of speech to say that the harvest is great and the laborers few.

There were ripe harvest-fields around Ivy Cliff, though Irene had not observed the golden grain bending its head for the sickle until Rose led her feet in the right direction. Not many of the naturally poor were around them, yet some required even bodily ministrations—children, the sick and the aged. The destitution that most prevailed was of the mind; and this is the saddest form of poverty. Mental hunger! how it exhausts the soul and debases its heaven-born faculties, sinking it into a gross corporeal sphere, that is only a little removed from the animal! To feed the hungry and clothe the naked mean a great deal more than the bestowal of food and raiment; yes, a great deal more; and we have done but a small part of Christian duty—have obeyed only in the letter—when we supply merely the bread that perishes.

Rose Carman had been wisely instructed, and she was an apt scholar. Now, from a learner she became a teacher, and in the suffering Irene found one ready to accept the higher truths that governed her life, and to act with her in giving them a real ultimatum. So, in the two years which had woven their web of new experiences for the heart of Irene, she had been drawn almost imperceptibly by Rose into fields of labor where the work that left her hands was, she saw, good work, and must endure for ever. What peace it often brought to her striving spirit, when, but for the sustaining and protecting power of good deeds, she would have been swept out upon the waves of turbulent passion—tossed and beaten there until her exhausted heart sunk down amid the waters, and lay dead for a while at the bottom of her great sea of trouble!

It was better—oh, how much better!—when she laid her head at night on her lonely pillow, to have in memory the face of a poor sick woman, which had changed from suffering to peace as she talked to her of higher things than the body's needs, and bore her mind up into a region of tranquil thought, than to be left with no image to dwell upon but an image of her own shattered hopes. Yes, this was far better; and by the power of such memories the unhappy one had many peaceful seasons and nights of sweet repose.

All around Ivy Cliff, Irene and Rose were known as ministrant spirits to the poor and humble. The father of Rose was a man of wealth, and she had his entire sympathy and encouragement. Irene had no regular duties at home, Margaret being housekeeper and directress in all departments. So there was nothing to hinder the free course of her will as to the employment of time. With all her pride of independence, the ease with which Mrs. Talbot drew Irene in one direction, and now Miss Carman in another, showed how easily she might be influenced when off her guard. This is true in most cases of your very self-willed people, and the reason why so many of them get astray. Only conceal the hand that leads them, and you may often take them where you will. Ah, if Hartley Emerson had been wise enough, prudent enough and loving enough to have influenced aright the fine young spirit he was seeking to make one with his own, how different would the result have been!

In the region round about, our two young friends came in time to be known as the "Sisters of Charity." It was not said of them mockingly, nor in gay depreciation, nor in mean ill-nature, but in expression of a common sentiment, that recognized their high, self-imposed mission.

Thus it had been with Irene since her return to the old home at Ivy Cliff.



CHAPTER XXII.

STRUCK DOWN.

YES, Irene had looked for this—looked for it daily for now more than a year. Still it came upon her with a shock that sent a strange, wild shudder through all her being. A divorce! She was less prepared for it than she had ever been.

What was beyond? Ah! that touched a chord which gave a thrill of pain. What was beyond? A new alliance, of course. Legal disabilities removed, Hartley Emerson would take upon himself new marriage vows. Could she say, "Yea, and amen" to this? No, alas! no. There was a feeling of intense, irrepressible anguish away down in heart-regions that lay far beyond the lead-line of prior consciousness. What did it mean? She asked herself the question with a fainting spirit. Had she not known herself? Were old states of tenderness, which she had believed crushed out and dead along ago, hidden away in secret places of her heart, and kept there safe from harm?

No wonder she sat pale and still, crumpling nervously that fatal document which had startled her with a new revelation of herself. There was love in her heart still, and she knew it not. For a long time she sat like one in a dream.

"God help me!" she said at length, looking around her in a wild, bewildered manner. "What does all this mean?"

There came at this moment a gentle tap at her door. She knew whose soft hand had given the sound.

"Irene," exclaimed Rose Carman, as she took the hand of her friend and looked into her changed countenance, "what ails you?"

Irene turned her face partly away to get control of its expression.

"Sit down, Rose," she said, as soon as she could trust herself to speak.

They sat down together, Rose troubled and wondering. Irene then handed her friend the notice which she had received. Miss Carman read it, but made no remark for some time.

"It has disturbed you," she said at length, seeing that Irene continued silent.

"Yes, more than I could have believed," answered Irene. Her voice had lost its familiar tones.

"You have expected this?"

"Yes."

"I thought you were prepared for it."

"And I am," replied Irene, speaking with more firmness of manner. "Expectation grows so nervous, sometimes, that when the event comes it falls upon us with a painful shock. This is my case now. I would have felt it less severely if it had occurred six months ago."

"What will you do?" asked Rose.

"Do?"

"Yes."

"What can I do?"

"Resist the application, if you will."

"But I will not," answered Irene, firmly. "He signifies his wishes in the case, and those wishes must determine everything. I will remain passive."

"And let the divorce issue by default of answer?"

"Yes."

There was a faintness of tone which Rose could not help remarking.

"Yes," Irene added, "he desires this complete separation, and I can have nothing to say in opposition. I left him, and have remained ever since a stranger to his home and heart. We are nothing to each other, and yet are bound together by the strongest of bonds. Why should he not wish to be released from these bonds? And if he desires it, I have nothing to say. We are divorced in fact—why then retain the form?"

"There may be a question of the fact," said Rose.

"Yes; I understand you. We have discussed that point fully. Your view may be right, but I do not see it clearly. I will at least retain passive. The responsibility shall rest with him."

No life or color came back to the face of Irene. She looked as cold as marble; not cold without feeling, but with intense feeling recorded as in a piece of sculpture.

There were deeds of kindness and mercy set down in the purposes of our young friend, and it was to go forth and perform them that Rose had called for Irene this morning. But only one Sister of Charity went to the field that day, and only one for many days afterward.

Irene could not recover from the shock of this legal notice. It found her less prepared than she had been at any time during the last two years of separation. Her life at Ivy Cliff had not been favorable to a spirit of antagonism and accusation, nor favorable to a self-approving judgment of herself when the past came up, as it often came, strive as she would to cover it as with a veil. She had grown in this night of suffering, less self-willed and blindly impulsive. Some scales had dropped from her eyes, and she saw clearer. Yet no repentance for that one act of her life, which involved a series of consequences beyond the reach of conjecture, had found a place in her heart. There was no looking back from this—no sober questioning as to the right or necessity which had been involved. There had been one great mistake—so she decided the case—and that was the marriage.

From this fatal error all subsequent evil was born.

Months of waiting and expectation followed, and then came a decree annulling the marriage.

"It is well," was the simple response of Irene when notice of the fact reached her.

Not even to Rose Carman did she reveal a thought that took shape in her mind, nor betray a single emotion that trembled in her heart. If there had been less appearance of indifference—less avoidance of the subject—her friends would have felt more comfortable as to her state of mind. The unnatural repose of, exterior was to them significant of a strife within which she wished to conceal from all eyes.

About this time her true, loving friend, Miss Carman, married. Irene did not stand as one of the bridesmaids at the ceremony. Rose gently hinted her wishes in the case, but Irene shrunk from the position, and her feeling was respected. The husband of Rose was a merchant, residing in New York, named Everet. After a short bridal tour she went to her new home in the city. Mr. Everet was five or six years her senior, and a man worthy to be her life-companion. No sudden attachment had grown up between them. For years they had been in the habit of meeting, and in this time the character of each had been clearly read by the other. When Mr. Everet asked the maiden's hand, it, was yielded without a sign of hesitation.

The removal of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff greatly disturbed the even-going tenor of Irene's life. It withdrew also a prop on which she had leaned often in times of weakness, which would recur very heavily.

"How can I live without you?" she said in tears, as she sat alone with the new-made bride on the eve of her departure; "you have been everything to me, Rose—strength in weakness; light, when all around was cold and dark; a guide when I had lost my way. God bless and make you happy, darling! And he will. Hearts like yours create happiness wherever they go."

"My new home will only be a few hours' distant," replied Rose; "I shall see you there often."

Irene sighed. She had been to the city only a few times since that sad day of separation from her husband. Could she return again and enter one of its bright social circles? Her heart said no. But love drew her too strongly. In less than a month after Rose became the mistress of a stately mansion, Irene was her guest. This was just six years from the time when she set up her home there, a proud and happy young wife. Alas! that hearth was desolate, "its bright fire quenched and gone."

It was best for Irene thus to get back again into a wider social sphere—to make some new friends, and those of a class that such a woman as Mrs. Everet would naturally draw around her. Three years of suffering, and the effort to lead a life of self-denial and active interest in others, had wrought in Irene a great change. The old, flashing ardor of manner was gone. If she grew animated in conversation, as she often did from temperament, her face would light up beautifully, but it did not show the radiance of old times. Thought, more than feeling, gave its living play to her countenance. All who met her were attracted; as her history was known, observation naturally took the form of close scrutiny. People wished to find the angular and repellant sides of her character in order to see how far she might be to blame. But they were not able to discover them. On the subjects of woman's rights, domestic tyranny, sexual equality and all kindred themes she was guarded in speech. She never introduced them herself, and said but little when they formed the staple of conversation.

Even if, in three years of intimate, almost daily, association with Rose, she had not learned to think in some new directions on these bewildering questions, certain womanly instincts must have set a seal upon her lips. Not for all the world would she, to a stranger—no, nor to any new friend—utter a sentiment that could in the least degree give color to the thought that she wished to throw even the faintest shadow of blame on Hartley Emerson. Not that she was ready to take blame to herself, or give the impression that fault rested by her door. No. The subject was sacred to herself, and she asked no sympathy and granted no confidences. There were those who sought to draw her out, who watched her face and words with keen intentness when certain themes were discussed. But they were unable to reach the penetralia of her heart. There was a chamber of record there into which no one could enter but herself.

Since the separation of Irene from her husband, Mr. Delancy had shown signs of rapid failure. His heart was bound up in his daughter, who, with all her captious self-will and impulsiveness, loved him with a tenderness and fervor that never knew change or eclipse. To see her make shipwreck of life's dearest hopes—to know that her name was spoken by hundreds in reprobation—to look daily on her quiet, changing, suffering face, was more than his fond heart could bear. It broke him down. This fact, more perhaps, than her own sad experiences, tended to sober the mind of Irene, and leave it almost passive under the right influences of her wise young friend.

After the removal of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff, the health of Mr. Delancy failed still more rapidly, and in a few months the brief visits of Irene to her friend in New York had to be intermitted. She could no longer venture to leave her father, even under the care of their faithful Margaret. A sad winter for Irene succeeded. Mr. Delancy drooped about until after Christmas, in a weary, listless way, taking little interest in anything, and bearing both physical and mental consciousness as a burden it would be pleasant to lay down. Early in January he had to give up and go to bed; and now the truth of his condition startled the mind of Irene and filled her with alarm. By slow, insidious encroachments, that dangerous enemy, typhoid fever, had gained a lodgment in the very citadel of life, and boldly revealed itself, defying the healer's art. For weeks the dim light of mortal existence burned with a low, wavering flame, that any sudden breath of air might extinguish; then it grew steady again, increased, and sent a few brighter rays into the darkness which had gathered around Ivy Cliff.

Spring found Mr. Delancy strong enough to sit, propped up with pillows, by the window of his chamber, and look out upon the newly-mantled trees, the green fields, and the bright river flashing in the sunshine. The heart of Irene took courage again. The cloud which had lain upon it all winter like a funereal pall dissolved, and went floating away and wasting itself in dim expanses.

Alas, that all this sweet promise was but a mockery of hope! A sudden cold, how taken it was almost impossible to tell—for Irene guarded her father as tenderly as if he were a new-born infant—disturbed life's delicate equipoise, and the scale turned fatally the wrong way.

Poor Irene! She had only staggered under former blows—this one struck her down. Had life anything to offer now? "Nothing! nothing!" she said in her heart, and prayed that she might die and be at rest with her father.

Months of stupor followed this great sorrow; then her heart began to beat again with some interest in life. There was one friend, almost her only friend—for she now repelled nearly every one who approached her—who never failed in hopeful, comforting, stimulating words and offices, who visited her frequently in her recluse life at Ivy Cliff, and sought with untiring assiduity to win her once more away from its dead seclusion. And she was at last successful. In the winter after Mr. Delancy's death, Irene, after much earnest persuasion, consented to pass a few weeks in the city with Mrs. Everet. This gained, her friend was certain of all the rest.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE HAUNTED VISION.

GRADUALLY the mind of Irene attained clearness of perception as to duty, and a firmness of will that led her to act in obedience to what reason and religion taught her was right. The leading idea which Mrs. Everet endeavored to keep before her was this: that no happiness is possible, except in some work that removes self-consciousness and fills our minds with an interest in the well-being of others. While Rose was at Ivy Cliff, Irene acted with her, and was sustained by her love and companionship. After her marriage and removal to New York, Irene was left to stand alone, and this tried her strength. It was feeble. The sickness and death of her father drew her back again into herself, and for a time extinguished all interest in what was on the outside. To awaken a new and higher life was the aim of her friend, and she never wearied in her generous efforts. During this winter plans were matured for active usefulness in the old spheres, and Mrs. Everet promised to pass as much time in the next summer with her father as possible, so as to act with Irene in the development of these schemes.

The first warm days of summer found Irene back again in her home at Ivy Cliff. Her visit in New York had been prolonged far beyond the limit assigned to it in the beginning, but Rose would not consent to an earlier return. This winter of daily life with Mrs. Everet, in the unreserved intercourse of home, was of great use to Irene. Affliction had mellowed all the harder portions of her disposition, which the trouble and experiences of the past few years could not reach with their softening influences. There was good soil in her mind, well prepared, and the sower failed not in the work of scattering good seed upon it with a liberal hand—seed that felt soon a quickening life and swelled in the delight of coming germination.

It is not our purpose to record the history of Irene during the years of her discipline at Ivy Cliff, where she lived, nun-like, for the larger part of her time. She had useful work there, and in its faithful performance peace came to her troubled soul. Three or four times every year she paid a visit to Rose, and spent on each occasion from one to three or four weeks. It could not but happen that in these visits congenial friendship would be made, and tender remembrances go back with her into the seclusion of her country home, to remain as sweet companions in her hours of loneliness.

It was something remarkable that, during the six or seven years which followed Irene's separation from her husband, she had never seen him. He was still a resident of New York, and well known as a rapidly advancing member of the bar. Occasionally his name met her eyes in the newspapers, as connected with some important suit; but, beyond this, his life was to her a dead letter. He might be married again, for all she knew to the contrary. But she never dwelt on that thought; its intrusion always disturbed her, and that profoundly.

And how was it with Hartley Emerson? Had he again tried the experiment which once so signally failed? No; he had not ventured upon the sea whose depths held the richest vessel he had freighted in life. Visions of loveliness had floated before him, and he had been lured by them, a few times, out of his beaten path. But he carried in his memory a picture that, when his eyes turned inward, held their gaze so fixedly that all other images grew dim or unlovely. And so, with a sigh, he would turn again to the old way and move on as before.

But the past was irrevocable. "And shall I," he began to say to himself, "for this one great error of my youth—this blind mistake—pass a desolate and fruitless life?"

Oftener and oftener the question was repeated in his thoughts, until it found answer in an emphatic No! Then he looked around with a new interest, and went more into society. Soon one fair face came more frequently before the eyes of his mind than any other face. He saw it as he sat in his law-office, saw it on the page of his book as he read in the evening, lying over the printed words and hiding from his thoughts their meaning; saw it in dreams. The face haunted him. How long was this since that fatal night of discord and separation? Ten years. So long? Yes, so long. Ten weary years had made their record upon his book of life and upon hers. Ten weary years! The discipline of this time had not worked on either any moral deterioration. Both were yet sound to the core, and both were building up characters based on the broad foundations of virtue.

Steadily that face grew into a more living distinctness, haunting his daily thoughts and nightly visions. Then new life-pulses began to throb in his heart; new emotions to tremble over its long calm surface; new warmth to flow, spring-like, into the indurated soil. This face, which had begun thus to dwell with him, was the face of a maiden, beautiful to look upon. He had met her often during a year, and from the beginning of their acquaintance she had interested him. If he erred not, the interest was mutual. From all points of view he now commenced studying her character. Having made one mistake, he was fearful and guarded. Better go on a lonely man to the end of life than again have his love-freighted bark buried in mid-ocean.

At last, Emerson was satisfied. He had found the sweet being whose life could blend in eternal oneness with his own; and it only remained for him to say to her in words what she had read as plainly as written language in his eyes. So far as she was concerned, no impediment existed. We will not say that she was ripe enough in soul to wed with this man, who had passed through experiences of a kind that always develop the character broadly and deeply. No, for such was not the case. She was too young and inexperienced to understand him; too narrow in her range of thought; too much a child. But something in her beautiful, innocent, sweet young face had won his heart; and in the weakness of passion, not in the manly strength of a deep love, he had bowed down to a shrine at which he could never worship and be satisfied.

But even strong men are weak in woman's toils, and Hartley Emerson was a captive.

There was to be a pleasure-party on one of the steamers that cut the bright waters of the fair Hudson, and Emerson and the maiden, whose face was now his daily companion, were to be of the number. He felt that the time had come for him to speak if he meant to speak at all—to say what was in his thought, or turn aside and let another woo and win the lovely being imagination had already pictured as the sweet companion of his future home. The night that preceded this excursion was a sleepless one for Hartley Emerson. Questions and doubts, scarcely defined in his thoughts before, pressed themselves upon him and demanded a solution. The past came up with a vividness not experienced for years. In states of semi-consciousness—half-sleeping, half-waking—there returned to him such life-like realizations of events long ago recorded in his memory, and covered over with the dust of time, that he started from them to full wakefulness, with a heart throbbing in wild tumult. Once there was presented so vivid a picture of Irene that for some moments he was unable to satisfy himself that all these ten years of loneliness were not a dream. He saw her as she stood before him on that ever-to-be-remembered night and said, "I go!" Let us turn back and read the record of her appearance as he saw her then and now:

"She had raised her eyes from the floor, and turned them full upon her husband. Her face was not so pale. 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 repulsively 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."

Emerson groaned as he fell back upon his pillow and shut his eyes. What would he not then have given for one full draught of Lethe's fabled waters.

Morning came at last, its bright beams dispersing the shadows of night; and with it came back the warmth of his new passion and his purpose on that day, if the opportunity came, to end all doubt, by offering the maiden his hand—we do not say heart, for of that he was not the full possessor.

The day opened charmingly, and the pleasure-party were on the wing betimes. Emerson felt a sense of exhilaration as the steamer passed out from her moorings and glided with easy grace along the city front. He stood upon her deck with a maiden's hand resting on his arm, the touch of which, though light as the pressure of a flower, was felt with strange distinctness. The shadows of the night, which had brooded so darkly over his spirit, were gone, and only a dim remembrance of the gloom remained. Onward the steamer glided, sweeping by the crowded line of buildings and moving grandly along, through palisades of rock on one side and picturesque landscapes on the other, until bolder scenery stretched away and mountain barriers raised themselves against the blue horizon.

There was a large number of passengers on board, scattered over the decks or lingering in the cabins, as inclination prompted. The observer of faces and character had field enough for study; but Hartley Emerson was not inclined to read in the book of character on this occasion. One subject occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all others. There had come a period that was full of interest and fraught with momentous consequences which must extend through all of his after years. He saw little but the maiden at his side—thought of little but his purpose to ask her to walk with him, a soul-companion, in the journey of life.

During the first hour there was a constant moving to and fro and the taking up of new positions by the passengers—a hum and buzz of conversation—laughing—exclamations—gay talk and enthusiasm. Then a quieter tone prevailed. Solitary individuals took places of observation; groups seated themselves in pleasant circles to chat, and couples drew away into cabins or retired places, or continued the promenade.

Among the latter were Emerson and his companion. Purposely he had drawn the fair girl away from their party, in order to get the opportunity he desired. He did not mean to startle her with an abrupt proposal here, in the very eye of observation, but to advance toward the object by slow approaches, marking well the effect of his words, and receding the moment he saw that, in beginning to comprehend him, her mind showed repulsion or marked disturbance.

Thus it was with them when the boat entered the Highlands and swept onward with wind-like speed. They were in one of the gorgeously furnished cabins, sitting together on a sofa. There had been earnest talk, but on some subject of taste. Gradually Emerson changed the theme and began approaching the one nearest to his heart. Slight embarrassment followed; his voice took on a different tone; it was lower, tenderer, more deliberate and impressive. He leaned closer, and the maiden did not retire; she understood him, and was waiting the pleasure of his speech with heart-throbbings that seemed as if they must be audible in his ears as well as her own.

The time had come. Everything was propitious. The words that would have sealed his fate and hers were on his lips, when, looking up, he knew not why, but under an impulse of the moment, he met two calm eyes resting upon him with an expression that sent the blood leaping back to his heart. Two calm eyes and a pale, calm face were before him for a moment; then they vanished in the crowd. But he knew them, though ten years lay between the last vision and this.

The words that were on his lips died unspoken. He could not have uttered them if life or death hung on the issue. No—no—no. A dead silence followed.

"Are you ill?" asked his companion, looking at him anxiously.

"No, oh no," he replied, trying to rally himself.

"But you are ill, Mr. Emerson. How pale your face is!"

"It will pass off in a moment." He spoke with an effort to appear self-possessed. "Let us go on deck," he added, rising. "There are a great many people in the cabin, and the atmosphere is oppressive."

A dead weight fell upon the maiden's heart as she arose and went on deck by the side of Mr. Emerson. She had noticed his sudden pause and glance across the cabin at the instant she was holding her breath for his next words, but did not observe the object, a sight of which had wrought on him so remarkable a change. They walked nearly the entire length of the boat, after getting on deck, before Mr. Emerson spoke. He then remarked on the boldness of the scenery and pointed out interesting localities, but in so absent and preoccupied a way that his companion listened without replying. In a little while he managed to get into the neighborhood of three or four of their party, with whom he left her, and, moving away, took a position on the upper deck just over the gangway from which the landings were made. Here he remained until the boat came to at a pier on which his feet had stepped lightly many, many times. Ivy Cliff was only a little way distant, hidden from view by a belt of forest trees. The ponderous machinery stood still, the plunging wheels stopped their muffled roar, and in the brooding silence that followed three or four persons stepped on the plank which had been thrown out and passed to the shore. A single form alone fixed the eyes of Hartley Emerson. He would have known it on the instant among a thousand. It was that of Irene. Her step was slow, like one abstracted in mind or like one in feeble health. After gaining the landing, she stood still and turned toward the boat, when their eyes met again—met, and held each other, by a spell which neither had power to break. The fastenings were thrown off, the engineer rung his bell; there was a clatter of machinery, a rush of waters and the boat glanced onward. Then Irene started like one suddenly aroused from sleep and walked rapidly away.

And thus they met for the first time after a separation of ten years.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MINISTERING ANGEL.

A CLATTER of machinery, a rush of waters, and the boat glanced onward but still Hartley Emerson stood motionless and statue-like, his eyes fixed upon the shore, until the swiftly-gliding vessel bore him away, and the object which had held his vision by a kind of fascination was concealed from view.

"An angel, if there ever was one on this side of heaven!" said a voice close to his ear. Emerson gave a start and turned quickly. A man plainly dressed stood beside him. He was of middle age, and had a mild, grave, thoughtful countenance.

"Of whom do you speak?" asked Emerson, not able entirely to veil his surprise.

"Of the lady we saw go ashore at the landing just now. She turned and looked at us. You could not help noticing her."

"Who is she?" asked Emerson, and then held his breath awaiting the answer. The question was almost involuntary, yet prompted by a suddenly awakened desire to bear the world's testimony regard to Irene.

"You don't know her, then?" remarked the stranger.

"I asked who she was." Emerson intended to say this firmly, but his voice was unsteady. "Let us sit down," he added, looking around, and then leading the way to where some unoccupied chairs were standing. By the time they were seated he had gained the mastery over himself.

"You don't know her, then?" said the man, repeating his words. "She is well known about these parts, I can assure you. Why, that was old Mr. Delancy's daughter. Did you never hear of her?"

"What about her?" was asked.

"Well, in the first place, she was married some ten or twelve years ago to a lawyer down in New York; and, in the second place, they didn't live very happily together—why, I never heard. I don't believe it was her fault, for she's the sweetest, kindest, gentlest lady it has ever been my good fortune to meet. Some people around Ivy Cliff call her the 'Angel,' and the word has meaning in it as applied to her. She left her husband, and he got a divorce, but didn't charge anything wrong against her. That, I suppose, was more than he dared to do, for a snow-flake is not purer."

"You have lived in the neighborhood?" said Emerson, keeping his face a little averted.

"Oh yes, sir. I have lived about here pretty much all my life."

"Then you knew Miss Delancy before she was married?"

"No, sir; I can't say that I knew much about her before that time. I used to see her now and then as she rode about the neighborhood. She was a gay, wild girl, sir. But that unhappy marriage made a great change in her. I cannot forget the first time I saw her after she came back to her father's. She seemed to me older by many years than when I last saw her, and looked like one just recovered from a long and serious illness. The brightness had passed from her face, the fire from her eyes, the spring from her footsteps. I believe she left her husband of her own accord, but I never knew that she made any complaint against him. Of course, people were very curious to know why she had abandoned him. But her lips must have been sealed, for only a little vague talk went floating around. I never heard a breath of wrong charged against him as coming from her."

Emerson's face was turned still more away from his companion, his eyes bent down and his brows firmly knit. He did not ask farther, but the man was on a theme that interested him, and so continued.

"For most of the time since her return to Ivy Cliff the life of Miss Delancy has been given to Christian charities. The death of her father was a heavy stroke. It took the life out of her for a while. Since her recovery from that shock she has been constantly active among us in good deeds. Poor sick women know the touch of her gentle hand and the music of her voice. She has brought sunlight into many wintry homes, and kindled again on hearths long desolate the fires of loving kindness. There must have been some lack of true appreciation on the part of her husband, sir. Bitter fountains do not send forth sweet waters like these. Don't you think so?"

"How should I know?" replied Emerson, a little coldly. The question was sprung upon him so suddenly that his answer was given in confusion of thought.

"We all have our opinions, sir," said the man, "and this seems a plain case. I've heard said that her husband was a hot-headed, self-willed, ill-regulated young fellow, no more fit to get married than to be President. That he didn't understand the woman—or, maybe, I should say child—whom he took for his wife is very certain, or he never would have treated her in the way he did!"

"How did he treat her?" asked Mr. Emerson.

"As to that," replied his talkative companion, "we don't know anything certain. But we shall not go far wrong in guessing that it was neither wise nor considerate. In fact, he must have outraged her terribly."

"This, I presume, is the common impression about Ivy Cliff?"

"No," said the man; "I've heard him well spoken of. The fact is, people are puzzled about the matter. We can't just understand it. But, I'm all on her side."

"I wonder she has not married again?" said Emerson. "There are plenty of men who would be glad to wed so perfect a being as you represent her to be."

"She marry!" There was indignation and surprise in the man's voice.

"Yes; why not?"

"Sir, she is a Christian woman!"

"I can believe that, after hearing your testimony in regard to her," said Emerson. But he still kept his face so much turned aside that its expression could not be seen.

"And reads her Bible."

"As we all should."

"And, what is more, believes in it," said the man emphatically.

"Don't all Christian people believe in the Bible?" asked Mr. Emerson.

"I suppose so, after a fashion; and a very queer fashion it is, sometimes."

"How does this lady of whom you speak believe in it differently from some others?"

"In this, that it means what it says on the subject of divorce."

"Oh, I understand. You think that if she were to marry again it would be in the face of conscientious scruples?"

"I do."

Mr. Emerson was about asking another question when one of the party to which he belonged joined him, and so the strange interview closed. He bowed to the man with whom he had been conversing, and then passed to another part of the boat.

With slow steps, that were unsteady from sudden weakness, Irene moved along the road that led to her home. After reaching the grounds of Ivy Cliff she turned aside into a small summer-house, and sat down at one of the windows that looked out upon the river as it stretched upward in its gleaming way. The boat she had just left was already far distant, but it fixed her eyes, and they saw no other object until it passed from view around a wooded point of land. And still she sat motionless, looking at the spot where it had vanished from her sight.

"Miss Irene!" exclaimed Margaret, the faithful old domestic, who still bore rule at the homestead, breaking in upon her reverie, "what in the world are you doing here? I expected you up to-day, and when the boat stopped at the landing and you didn't come, I was uneasy and couldn't rest. Why child, what is the matter? You're sick!"

"Oh no, Margaret, I'm well enough," said Irene, trying to smile indifferently. And she arose and left the summer-house.

Kind, observant old Margaret was far from being satisfied, however. She saw that Irene was not as when she departed for the city a week before. If she were not sick in body, she was troubled in her mind, for her countenance was so changed that she could not look upon it without feeling a pang in her heart.

"I'm sure you're sick, Miss Irene," she said as they entered the house. "Now, what is the matter? What can I do or get for you? Let me send over for Dr. Edmondson?"

"No, no, my good Margaret, don't think of such a thing," replied Irene. "I'm not sick."

"Something's the matter with you, child," persisted Margaret.

"Nothing that won't cure itself," said Irene, trying to speak cheerfully. "I'll go up to my room for a little while."

And she turned away from her kind-hearted domestic. On entering her chamber Irene locked the door in order to be safe from intrusion, for she knew that Margaret would not let half an hour pass without coming up to ask how she was. Sitting down by the window, she looked out upon the river, along whose smooth surface had passed the vessel in which, a little while before, she met the man once called by the name of husband—met him and looked into his face for the first time in ten long years! The meeting had disturbed her profoundly. In the cabin of that vessel she had seen him by the side of a fair young girl in earnest conversation; and she had watched with a strange, fluttering interest the play of his features. What was he saying to that fair young girl that she listened with such a breathless, waiting air? Suddenly he turned toward her, their eyes met and were spell-bound for moments. What did she read in his eyes in those brief moments? What did he read in hers? Both questions pressed themselves upon her thoughts as she retreated among the crowd of passengers, and then hid herself from the chance of another meeting until the boat reached the landing at Ivy Cliff. Why did she pause on the shore, and turn to look upon the crowded decks? She knew not. The act was involuntary. Again their eyes met—met and held each other until the receding vessel placed dim distance between them.

In less than half an hour Margaret's hand was on the door, but she could not enter. Irene had not moved from her place at the window in all that time.

"Is that you, Margaret?" she called, starting from her abstraction.

"Do you want anything, Miss Irene?"

"No, thank you, Margaret."

She answered in as cheerful a tone as she could assume, and the kind old waiting-woman retired.

From that time every one noted a change in Irene. But none knew, or even guessed, its cause or meaning. Not even to her friend, Mrs. Everet, did she speak of her meeting with Hartley Emerson. Her face did not light up as before, and her eyes seemed always as if looking inward or gazing dreamily upon something afar off. Yet in good deeds she failed not. If her own heart was heavier, she made other hearts lighter by her presence.

And still the years went on in their steady revolutions—one, two, three, four, five more years, and in all that time the parted ones did not meet again.



CHAPTER XXV.

BORN FOR EACH OTHER.

"I SAW Mr. Emerson yesterday," said Mrs. Everet. She was sitting with Irene in her own house in New York.

"Did you?" Irene spoke evenly and quietly, but did not turn her face toward Mrs. Everet.

"Yes. I saw him at my husband's store. Mr. Everet has engaged him to conduct an important suit, in which many thousands of dollars are at stake."

"How does he look?" inquired Irene, without showing any feelings but still keeping her face turned from Mrs Everet.

"Well, I should say, though rather too much frosted for a man of his years."

"Gray, do you mean?" Irene manifested some surprise.

"Yes; his hair and beard are quite sprinkled with time's white snow-flakes."

"He is only forty," remarked Irene.

"I should say fifty, judging from his appearance."

"Only forty." And a faint sigh breathed on the lips of Irene. She did not look around at her friend but sat very still, with her face turned partly away. Mrs. Everet looked at her closely, to read, if possible, what was passing in her mind. But the countenance of Irene was too much hidden. Her attitude, however, indicated intentness of thought, though not disturbing thought.

"Rose," she said at length, "I grow less at peace with myself as the years move onward."

"You speak from some passing state of mind," suggested Mrs. Everet.

"No; from a gradually forming permanent state. Ten years ago I looked back upon the past in a stern, self-sustaining, martyr-spirit. Five years ago all things wore a different aspect. I began to have misgivings; I could not so clearly make out my case. New thoughts on the subject—and not very welcome ones—began to intrude. I was self-convicted of wrong; yes, Rose, of a great and an irreparable wrong. I shut my eyes; I tried to look in other directions; but the truth, once seen, could not pass from the range of mental vision. I have never told you that I saw Mr. Emerson five years ago. The effect of that meeting was such that I could not speak of it, even to you. We met on one of the river steamboats—met and looked into each other's eyes for just a moment. It may only be a fancy of mine, but I have thought sometimes that, but for this seemingly accidental meeting, he would have married again."

"Why do you think so?" asked Mrs. Everet.

Irene did not answer for some moments. She hardly dared venture to put what she had seen in words. It was something that she felt more like hiding even from her own consciousness, if that were possible. But, having ventured so far, she could not well hold back. So she replied, keeping her voice into as dead a level as it was possible to assume:

"He was sitting in earnest conversation with a young lady, and from the expression of her face, which I could see, the subject on which he was speaking was evidently one in which more than her thought was interested. I felt at the time that he was on the verge of a new life-experiment—was about venturing upon a sea on which he had once made shipwreck. Suddenly he turned half around and looked at me before I had time to withdraw my eyes—looked at me with a strange, surprised, startled look. In another moment a form came between us; when it passed I was lost from his gaze in the crowd of passengers. I have puzzled myself a great many times over that fact of his turning his eyes, as if from some hidden impulse, just to the spot where I was sitting. There are no accidents—as I have often heard you say—in the common acceptation of the term; therefore this was no accident."

"It was a providence," said Rose.

"And to what end?" asked Irene.

Mrs. Everet shook her head.

"I will not even presume to conjecture."

Irene sighed, and then sat lost in thought. Recovering herself, she said:

"Since that time I have been growing less and less satisfied with that brief, troubled portion of my life which closed so disastrously. I forgot how much the happiness of another was involved. A blind, willful girl, struggling in imaginary bonds, I thought only of myself, and madly rent apart the ties which death only should have sundered. For five years, Rose, I have carried in my heart the expression which looked out upon me from the eyes of Mr. Emerson at that brief meeting. Its meaning was not then, nor is it now, clear. I have never set myself to the work of interpretation, and believe the task would be fruitless. But whenever it is recalled I am affected with a tender sadness. And so his head is already frosted, Rose?"

"Yes."

"Though in years he has reached only manhood's ripened state. How I have marred his life! Better, far better, would it have been for him if I had been the bride of Death on my wedding-day!"

A shadow of pain darkened her face.

"No," replied Mrs. Everet; "it is better for both you and him that you were not the bride of Death. There are deeper things hidden in the events of life than our reason can fathom. We die when it is best for ourselves and best for others that we should die—never before. And the fact that we live is in itself conclusive that we are yet needed in the world by all who can be affected by our mortal existence."

"Gray hairs at forty!" This seemed to haunt the mind of Irene.

"It may be constitutional," suggested Mrs. Everet; "some heads begin to whiten at thirty."

"Possibly."

But the tone expressed no conviction.

"How was his face?" asked Irene.

"Grave and thoughtful. At least so it appeared to me."

"At forty." It was all Irene said.

Mrs. Everet might have suggested that a man of his legal position would naturally be grave and thoughtful, but she did not.

"It struck me," said Mrs. Everet, "as a true, pure, manly face. It was intellectual and refined; delicate, yet firm about the mouth and expansive in the upper portions. The hair curled softly away from his white temples and forehead."

"Worthy of a better fate!" sighed Irene. "And it is I who have marred his whole life! How blind is selfish passion! Ah, my friend, the years do not bring peace to my soul. There have been times when to know that he had sought refuge from a lonely life in marriage would have been a relief to me. Were this the case, the thought of his isolation, of his imperfect life, would not be for ever rebuking me. But now, while no less severely rebuked by this thought, I feel glad that he has not ventured upon an act no clear sanction for which is found in the Divine law. He could not, I feel, have remained so true and pure a man as I trust he is this day. God help him to hold on, faithful to his highest intuitions, even unto the end."

Mrs. Everet looked at Irene wonderingly as she spoke. She had never before thus unveiled her thoughts.

"He struck me," was her reply, "as a man who had passed through years of discipline and gained the mastery of himself."

"I trust that it may be so," Irene answered, rather as if speaking to herself than to another.

"As I grow older," she added, after a long pause, now looking with calm eyes upon her friend, "and life-experiences correct my judgment and chasten my feelings, I see all things in a new aspect. I understand my own heart better—its needs, capacities and yearnings; and self-knowledge is the key by which we unlock the mystery of other souls. So a deeper self-acquaintance enables me to look deeper into the hearts of all around me. I erred in marrying Mr. Emerson. We were both too hasty, self-willed and tenacious of rights and opinions to come together in a union so sacred and so intimate. But, after I had become his wife, after I had taken upon myself such holy vows, it was my duty to stand fast. I could not abandon my place and be innocent before God and man. And I am not innocent, Rose."

The face of Irene was strongly agitated for some moments; but she recovered herself and went on:

"I am speaking of things that have hitherto been secrets of my own heart. I could not bring them out even for you to look at, my dearest, truest, best of friends. Now it seems as if I could not bear the weight of my heavy thoughts alone; as if, in admitting you beyond the veil, I might find strength to suffer, if not ease from pain. There is no such thing as living our lives over again and correcting their great errors. The past is an irrevocable fact. Ah, if conscience would sleep, if struggles for a better life would make atonement for wrong—then, as our years progress, we might lapse into tranquil states. But gradually clearing vision increases the magnitude of a fault like mine, for its fatal consequences are seen in broader light. There is a thought which has haunted me for a year past like a spectre. It comes to me unbidden; sometimes to disturb the quiet of my lonely evenings, sometimes in the silent night-watches to banish sleep from my pillow; sometimes to place silence on my lips as I sit among cherished friends. I never imagined that I would put this thought in words for any mortal ear; yet it is coming to my lips now, and I feel impelled to go on. You believe that there are, as you call them 'conjugal partners,' or men and women born for each other, who, in a true marriage of souls, shall become eternally one. They do not always meet in this life; nay, for the sake of that discipline which leads to purification, may form other and uncongenial ties in the world, and live unhappily; but in heaven they will draw together by a divinely-implanted attraction, and be there united for ever. I have felt that something like this must be true; that every soul must have its counterpart. The thought which has so haunted me is, that Hartley Emerson and unhappy I were born for each other."

She paused and looked with a half-startled air upon Mrs. Everet to mark the effect of this revelation. But Rose made no response and showed no surprise, however she might have been affected by the singular admission of her friend.

"It has been all in vain," continued Irene "that I have pushed the thought aside—called it absurd, insane, impossible—back it would come and take its old place. And, stranger still, out of facts that I educed to prove its fallacy would come corroborative suggestions. I think it is well for my peace of mind that I have not been in the way of hearing about him or of seeing him. Since we parted it has been as if a dark curtain had fallen between us; and, so far as I am concerned, that curtain has been lifted up but once or twice, and then only for a moment of time. So all my thoughts of him are joined to the past. Away back in that sweet time when the heart of girlhood first thrills with the passion of love are some memories that haunt my soul like dreams from Elysium. He was, in my eyes, the impersonation of all that was lovely and excellent; his presence made my sense of happiness complete; his voice touched my ears as the blending of all rich harmonies. But there fell upon him a shadow; there came hard discords in the music which had entranced my soul; the fine gold was dimmed. Then came that period of mad strife, of blind antagonism, in which we hurt each other by rough contact. Finally, we were driven far asunder, and, instead of revolving together around a common centre, each has moved in a separate orbit. For years that dark period of pain has held the former period of brightness in eclipse; but of late gleams from that better time have made their way down to the present. Gradually the shadows are giving away. The first state is coming to be felt more and more as the true state—as that in best agreement with what we are in relation to each other. It was the evil in us that met in such fatal antagonism—not the good; it was something that we must put off if we would rise from natural and selfish life into spiritual and heavenly life. It was our selfishness and passion that drove us asunder. Thus it is, dear Rose, that my thoughts have been wandering about in the maze of life that entangles me. In my isolation I have time enough for mental inversion—for self-exploration—for idle fancies, if you will. And so I have lifted the veil for you; uncovered my inner life; taken you into the sanctuary over whose threshold no foot but my own had ever passed."

There was too much in all this for Mrs. Everet to venture upon any reply that involved suggestion or advice. It was from a desire to look deeper into the heart of her friend that she had spoken of her meeting with Mr. Emerson. The glance she obtained revealed far more than her imagination had ever reached.



CHAPTER XXVI.

LOVE NEVER DIES.

THE brief meeting with Mrs. Everet had stirred the memory of old times in the heart of Mr. Emerson. With a vividness unknown for years, Ivy Cliff and the sweetness of many life-passages there came back to him, and set heart-pulses that he had deemed stilled for ever beating in tumultuous waves. When the business of the day was over he sat down in the silence of his chamber and turned his eyes inward. He pushed aside intervening year after year, until the long-ago past was, to his consciousness, almost as real as the living present. What he saw moved him deeply. He grew restless, then showed disturbance of manner. There was an effort to turn away from the haunting fascination of this long-buried, but now exhumed period; but the dust and scoria were removed, and it lifted, like another Pompeii, its desolate walls and silent chambers in the clear noon-rays of the present.

After a long but fruitless effort to bury the past again, to let the years close over it as the waves close over a treasure-laden ship, Mr. Emerson gave himself up to its thronging memories and let them bear him whither they would.

In this state of mind he unlocked one of the drawers in a secretary and took therefrom a small box or casket. Placing this on a table, he sat down and looked at it for some minutes, as if in doubt whether it were best for him to go further in this direction. Whether satisfied or not, he presently laid his fingers upon the lid of the casket and slowly opened it. It contained only a morocco case. He touched this as if it were something precious and sacred. For some moments after it was removed he sat holding it in his hand and looking at the dark, blank surface, as a long-expected letter is sometimes held before the seal is broken and the contents devoured with impatient eagerness. At last his finger pressed the spring on which it had been resting, and he looked upon a young, sweet face, whose eyes gazed back into his with a living tenderness. In a little while his hand so trembled, and his eyes grew so dim, that the face was veiled from his sight. Closing the miniature, but still retaining it in his hand, he leaned back in his chair and remained motionless, with shut eyes, for a long time; then he looked at the fair young face again, conning over every feature and expression, until sad memories came in and veiled it again with tears.

"Folly! weakness!" he said at last, pushing the picture from him and making a feeble effort to get back his manly self-possession. "The past is gone for ever. The page on which its sad history is written was closed long ago, and the book is sealed. Why unclasp the volume and search for that dark record again?"

Yet, even as he said this, his hand reached out for the miniature, and his eyes were on it ere the closing words had parted from his lips.

"Poor Irene!" he murmured, as he gazed on her pictured face. "You had a pure, tender, loving heart—" then, suddenly shutting the miniature, with a sharp click of the spring, he tossed it from him upon the table and said,

"This is folly! folly! folly!" and, leaning back in his chair, he shut his eyes and sat for a long time with his brows sternly knitted together and his lips tightly compressed. Rising, at length, he restored the miniature to its casket, and the casket to its place in the drawer. A servant came to the door at this moment, bringing the compliments of a lady friend, who asked him, if not engaged, to favor her with his company on that evening, as she had a visitor, just arrived, to whom she wished to introduce him. He liked the lady, who was the wife of a legal friend, very well; but he was not always so well pleased with her lady friends, of whom she had a large circle. The fact was, she considered him too fine a man to go through life companionless, and did not hesitate to use every art in her power to draw him into an entangling alliance. He saw this, and was often more amused than annoyed by her finesse.

It was on his lips to send word that he was engaged, but a regard for truth would not let him make this excuse; so, after a little hesitation and debate, he answered that he would present himself during the evening. The lady's visitor was a widow of about thirty years of age—rich, educated, accomplished and personally attractive. She was from Boston, and connected with one of the most distinguished families in Massachusetts, whose line of ancestry ran back among the nobles of England. In conversation this lady showed herself to be rarely gifted, and there was a charm about her manners that was irresistible. Mr. Emerson, who had been steadily during the past five years growing less and less attracted by the fine women he met in society, found himself unusually interested in Mrs. Eager.

"I knew you would like her," said his lady friend, as Mr. Emerson was about retiring at eleven o'clock.

"You take your conclusion for granted," he answered, smiling. "Did I say that I liked her?"

"We ladies have eyes," was the laughing rejoinder. "Of course you like her. She's going to spend three or four days with me. You'll drop in to-morrow evening. Now don't pretend that you have an engagement. Come; I want you to know her better. I think her charming."

Mr. Emerson did not promise positively, but said that he might look in during the evening.

For a new acquaintance, Mrs. Eager had attracted him strongly; and his thoughtful friend was not disappointed in her expectation of seeing him at her house on the succeeding night. Mrs. Eager, to whom the lady she was visiting had spoken of Mr. Emerson in terms of almost extravagant eulogy, was exceedingly well pleased with him, and much gratified at meeting him again, A second interview gave both an opportunity for closer observation, and when they parted it was with pleasant thoughts of each other lingering in their minds. During the time that Mrs. Eager remained in New York, which was prolonged for a week beyond the period originally fixed, Mr. Emerson saw her almost every day, and became her voluntary escort in visiting points of local interest. The more he saw of her the more he was charmed with her character. She seemed in his eyes the most attractive woman he had ever met. Still, there was something about her that did not wholly satisfy him, though what it was did not come into perception.

Five years had passed since any serious thought of marriage had troubled the mind of Mr. Emerson. After his meeting with Irene he had felt that another union in this world was not for him—that he had no right to exchange vows of eternal fidelity with any other woman. She had remained unwedded, and would so remain, he felt, to the end of her life. The legal contract between them was dissolved; but, since his brief talk with the stranger on the boat, he had not felt so clear as to the higher law obligations which were upon them. And so he had settled it in his mind to bear life's burdens alone.

But Mrs. Eager had crossed his way, and filled, in many respects, his ideal of a woman. There was a charm about her that won him against all resistance.

"Don't let this opportunity pass," said his interested lady friend, as the day of Mrs. Eager's departure drew nigh. "She is a woman in a thousand, and will make one of the best of wives. Think, too, of her social position, her wealth and her large cultivation. An opportunity like this is never presented more than once in a lifetime."

"You speak," replied Mr. Emerson, "as if I had only to say the word and this fair prize would drop into my arms."

"She will have to be wooed if she is won. Were this not the case she would not be worth having," said the lady. "But my word for it, if you turn wooer the winning will not be hard. If I have not erred in my observation, you are about mutually interested. There now, my cautious sir, if you do not get handsomely provided for, it will be no fault of mine."

In two days from this time Mrs. Eager was to return to Boston.

"You must take her to see those new paintings at the rooms of the Society Library to-morrow. I heard her express a desire to examine them before returning to Boston. Connoisseurs are in ecstasies over three or four of the pictures, and, as Mrs. Eager is something of an enthusiast in matters of art, your favor in this will give her no light pleasure."

"I shall be most happy to attend her," replied Mr. Emerson. "Give her my compliments, and say that, if agreeable to herself, I will call for her at twelve to-morrow."

"No verbal compliments and messages," replied the lady; "that isn't just the way."

"How then? Must I call upon her and deliver my message? That might not be convenient to me nor agreeable to her."

"Oh!" ejaculated the lady, with affected impatience, "you men are so stupid at times! You know how to write?"

"Ah! yes, I comprehend you now."

"Very well. Send your compliments and your message in a note; and let it be daintily worded; not in heavy phrases, like a legal document."

"A very princess in feminine diplomacy!" said Mr. Emerson to himself, as he turned from the lady and took his way homeward. "So I must pen a note."

Now this proved a more difficult matter than he had at first thought. He sat down to the task immediately on returning to his room. On a small sheet of tinted note-paper he wrote a few words, but they did not please him, and the page was thrown into the fire. He tried again, but with no better success—again and again; but still, as he looked at the brief sentences, they seemed to express too much or too little. Unable to pen the note to his satisfaction, he pushed, at last, his writing materials aside, saying,

"My head will be clearer and cooler in the morning."

It was drawing on to midnight, and Mr. Emerson had not yet retired. His thoughts were too busy for sleep. Many things were crowding into his mind—questions, doubts, misgivings—scenes from the past and imaginations of the future. And amid them all came in now and then, just for a moment, as he had seen it five years before, the pale, still face of Irene.

Wearied in the conflict, tired nature at last gave way, and Mr. Emerson fell asleep in his chair.

Two hours of deep slumber tranquilized his spirit. He awoke from this, put off his clothing and laid his head on his pillow. It was late in the morning when he arose. He had no difficulty now in penning a note to Mrs. Eager. It was the work of a moment, and satisfactory to him in the first effort.

At twelve he called with a carriage for the lady, whom he found all ready to accompany him, and in the best possible state of mind. Her smile, as he presented himself, was absolutely fascinating; and her voice seemed like a freshly-tuned instrument, every tone was so rich in musical vibration, and all the tones came chorded to his ear.

There were not many visitors at the exhibition rooms—a score, perhaps—but they were art-lovers, gazing in rapt attention or talking in hushed whispers. They moved about noiselessly here and there, seeming scarcely conscious that others were present. Gradually the number increased, until within an hour after they entered it was more than doubled. Still, the presence of art subdued all into silence or subdued utterances.

Emerson was charmed with his companion's appreciative admiration of many pictures. She was familiar with art-terms and special points of interest, and pointed out beauties and harmonies that to him were dead letters without an interpreter. They came, at last, to a small but wonderfully effective picture, which contained a single figure, that of a man sitting by a table in a room which presented the appearance of a library. He held a letter in his hand—a old letter; the artist had made this plain—but was not reading. He had been reading; but the words, proving conjurors, had summoned the dead past before him, and he was now looking far away, with sad, dreamy eyes, into the long ago. A casket stood open. Time letter had evidently been taken from this repository. There was a miniature; a bracelet of auburn hair; a ring and a chain of gold lying on the table. Mr. Emerson turned to the catalogue and read,

"WITH THE BURIED PAST."

And below this title the brief sentiment—

"Love never dies."

A deep, involuntary sigh came through his lips and stirred the pulseless air around him. Then, like an echo, there came to his ears an answering sigh, and, turning, he looked into the face of Irene! She had entered the rooms a little while before, and in passing from picture to picture had reached this one a few moments after Mr. Emerson. She had not observed him, and was just beginning to feel its meaning, when the sigh that attested its power over him reached her ears and awakened an answering sigh. For several moments their eyes were fixed in a gaze which neither had power to withdraw. The face of Irene had grown thinner, paler and more shadowy—if we may use that term to express something not of the earth, earthy—than it was when he looked upon it five years before. But her eyes were darker in contrast with her colorless face, and had a deeper tone of feeling.

They did not speak nor pass a sign of recognition. But the instant their eyes withdrew from each other Irene turned from the picture and left the rooms.

When Mr. Emerson looked back into the face of his companion, its charm was gone. Beside that of the fading countenance, so still and nun-like, upon which he had gazed a moment before, it looked coarse and worldly. When she spoke, her tones no longer came in chords of music to his ears, but jarred upon his feelings. He grew silent; cold, abstracted. The lady noted the change, and tried to rally him; but her efforts were vain. He moved by her side like an automaton, and listened to her comments on the pictures they paused to examine in such evident absent-mindedness that she became annoyed, and proposed returning home. Mr. Emerson made no objection, and they left the quiet picture-gallery for the turbulence of Broadway. The ride home was a silent one, and they separated in mutual embarrassment, Mr. Emerson going back to his rooms instead of to his office, and sitting down in loneliness there, with a shuddering sense of thankfulness at his heart for the danger he had just escaped.

"What a blind spell was on me!" he said, as he gazed away down into his soul—far, far deeper than any tone or look from Mrs. Eager had penetrated—and saw needs, states and yearnings there which must be filled or there could be no completeness of life. And now the still, pale face of Irene stood out distinctly; and her deep, weird, yearning eyes looked into his with a fixed intentness that stirred his heart to its profoundest depths.

Mr. Emerson was absent from his office all that day. But on the next morning he was at his post, and it would have taken a close observer to have detected any change in his usually quiet face. But there was a change in the man—a great change. He had gone down deeper into his heart than he had ever gone before, and understood himself better. There was little danger of his ever being tempted again in this direction.



CHAPTER XXVII.

EFFECTS OF THE STORM.

IT was more than a week before Mr. Emerson called again upon the lady friend who had shown so strong a desire to procure him a wife. He expected her to introduce the name of Mrs. Eager, and came prepared to talk in a way that would for ever close the subject of marriage between them. The lady expressed surprise at not having seen him for so long a time, and then introduced the subject nearest her thought.

"What was the matter with you and Mrs. Eager?" she asked, her face growing serious.

Mr. Emerson shook his head, and said, "Nothing," with not a shadow of concern in his voice.

"Nothing? Think again. I could hardly have been deceived."

"Why do you ask? Did the lady charge anything ungallant against me?"

Mr. Emerson was unmoved.

"Oh no, no! She scarcely mentioned your name after her return from viewing the pictures. But she was not in so bright a humor as when she went out, and was dull up to the hour of her departure for Boston. I'm afraid you offended her in some way—unconsciously on your part, of course."

"No, I think not," said Mr. Emerson. "She would be sensitive in the extreme if offended by any word or act of mine."

"Well, letting that all pass, Mr. Emerson, what do you think of Mrs. Eager?"

"That she is an attractive and highly accomplished woman."

"And the one who reaches your ideal of a wife?"

"No, ma'am," was the unhesitating answer, and made in so emphatic a tone that there was no mistaking his sincerity. There was a change in his countenance and manner. He looked unusually serious.

The lady tried to rally him, but he had come in too sober a state of mind for pleasant trifling on this subject, of all others.

"My kind, good friend," he said, "I owe you many thanks for the interest you have taken in me, and for your efforts to get me a companion. But I do not intend to marry."

"So you have said—"

"Pardon me for interrupting you." Mr. Emerson checked the light speech that was on her tongue. "I am going to say to you some things that have never passed my lips before. You will understand me; this I know, or I would not let a sentence come into utterance. And I know more, that you will not make light of what to me is sacred."

The lady was sobered in a moment.

"To make light of what to you is sacred would be impossible," she replied.

"I believe it, and therefore I am going to speak of things that are to me the saddest of my life, and yet are coming to involve the holiest sentiments. I have more than one reason for desiring now to let another look below the quiet surface; and I will lift the veil for your eyes alone. You know that I was married nearly twenty years ago, and that my wife separated herself from me in less than three years after our union; and you also know that the separation was made permanent by a divorce. This is all that you or any other one knows, so far as I have made communication on the subject; and I have reason to believe that she who was my wife has been as reserved in the matter as myself.

"The simple facts in the case are these: We were both young and undisciplined, both quick-tempered, self-willed, and very much inclined to have things our own way. She was an only child, and so was I. Each had been spoiled by long self-indulgence. So, when we came together in marriage, the action of our lives, instead of taking a common pulsation, was inharmonious. For a few years we strove together blindly in our bonds, and then broke madly asunder. I think we were about equally in fault; but if there was a preponderance of blame, it rested on my side, for, as a man, I should have kept a cooler head and shown greater forbearance. But the time for blame has long since passed. It is with the stern, irrevocable facts that we are dealing now.

"So bitter had been our experience, and so painful the shock of separation, that I think a great many years must have passed before repentance came into either heart—before a feeling of regret that we had not held fast to our marriage vows was born. How it was with me you may infer from the fact that, after the lapse of two years, I deliberately asked for and obtained a divorce on the ground of desertion. But doubt as to the propriety of this step stirred uneasily in my mind for the first time when I held the decree in my hand; and I have never felt wholly satisfied with myself since. There should be something deeper than incompatibility of temper to warrant a divorce. The parties should correct what is wrong in themselves, and thus come into harmony. There is no excuse for pride, passion and self-will. The law of God does not make these justifiable causes of divorce, and neither should the law of man. A purer woman than my wife never lived; and she had elements of character that promised a rare development. I was proud of her. Ah, if I had been wiser and more patient! If I had endeavored to lead, instead of assuming the manly prerogative! But I was young, and blind, and willful!

"Fifteen years have passed since the day we parted, and each has remained single. If we had not separated, we might now be living in a true heart-union; for I believe, strange as it may sound to you, that we were made for each other—that, when the false and evil of our lives are put off, the elements of conjunction will appear. We have made for ourselves of this world a dreary waste, when, if we had overcome the evil of our hearts, our paths would have been through green and fragrant places. It may be happier for us in the next; and it will be. I am a better man, I think, for the discipline through which I have passed, and she is a better woman."