"Yes." A single cold monosyllable was her reply.

"Who was he?"

"'Deed I don't know, sir."

"Was he a stranger?"

"I didn't see him, sir," answered Mary.

"You let him in?"

"No, sir. The cook went to the door."

Dexter bit his lips with disappointment.

"Will you say to Miss Loring that I wish to see her particularly to-night."

Mary hesitated.

"Why don't you take up my request?" He spoke with covert impatience.

"I am sure she wishes to be excused to-night," persisted the girl. "She's not at all herself; and it will be cruel to drag her down."

But Dexter waved his hand, and said, sharply:

"I wish to hear no more from you, Miss Pert! Go to Miss Loring, and tell her that she will confer a favor by seeing me this evening. I can receive no apology but sickness."

Jessie was sitting as Mary had left her, both hands covering her face, when that kind-hearted creature returned.

"It's too much!" exclaimed the girl, as she entered. "He must see you, he says. I told him you wasn't well, and wished to be excused. But no, he must see you! Something's gone wrong with him. He's all out of sorts, and spoke as if he'd take my head off. He really frightened me!"

Jessie drew a long deep sigh.

"If I must, I must," she said, rising and looking at her face in the mirror.

"I wouldn't go one step, Miss Jessie, if I were you. I'd like to see the man who dared order me down in this style. He's jealous; that's the long and short of it. Punish him—he deserves it."

"Jealous, Mary?" Miss Loring turned to the girl with a startled look. "Why do you say that?"

"Oh, he asked me if you hadn't a visitor to-night."

"Well?"

"I said yes. Only 'yes,' and no more."

"Why yes, and no more?" asked Miss Loring.

"D'ye think I was going to gratify him! What business had he to ask whether you had a visitor or not? You ain't sold to him."

"Mary!" There was reproof in the look and voice of Miss Loring. "You must not speak so of Mr. Dexter."

"Well, I won't if it displeases you. But I was downright mad with him."

"You said yes to his question. What then, Mary?"

"Oh, then he wanted to know who he was."

"Did you tell him?"

"No."

"Why? And what did you answer?"

"I wasn't going to gratify him; and I said that I didn't know."

"Well?"

"'Was he a stranger?' said he. 'I didn't see him,' said I. 'You let him in?' said he. 'No, the cook went to the door,' said I. You should have seen him then. He was baffled. Then looking almost savage, he bid me tell you that you must see him to-night."

"Must see him! Did he say must?"

There was rebellion in Jessie's voice.

"Well no, not just that word. But he looked and meant it, which is all the same."

"Then he doesn't know who called to see me?"

"Not from all he got from me, miss. But you're not going down?"

"Yes, Mary; I will see him as he desires. Go and say that I will join him in a few minutes."

The girl obeyed, and Jessie, after struggling a few moments with her feelings, went down to the parlor, where Mr. Dexter awaited her.

"I am sorry to learn that you are not well this evening," said the young man, as he advanced across the room, with his eyes fixed intently on the face of his betrothed. She tried to smile, and receive him with her usual kindness of manner. But this was impossible. She had been profoundly disturbed, and that too recently for self-possession.

"What ails you? Has anything happened?"

Jessie had not yet trusted her lips with words. The tones of Dexter evinced some fretfulness.

"I am not very well," she said, partly turning away her face that she might avoid the searching scrutiny of his eyes.

Dexter took her hand and led her to a sofa. They sat down, side by side, in silence—ice between them.

"Have you been indisposed all day?" inquired Dexter.

"I have not been very well for some time," was answered in a husky voice, and in a manner that he thought evasive.

Again there was silence.

"I called to see Mrs. Denison this evening," said Dexter; and then waited almost breathlessly for a response, looking at Jessie stealthily to note the effect of his words.

"Did you?"

There was scarcely a sign of interest in her voice.

"Yes. You have met her, I believe?"

"A few times."

"Have you seen her recently?"

"No."

Dexter gained nothing by this advance.

"What do you think of her?" he added, after a pause.

"She is a lady of fine social qualities and superior worth."

Again the young man was silent. He could not discover by Jessie's manner that she had any special interest in Mrs. Denison. This was some relief; for it removed the impression that there was an understanding between them.

"I don't admire her a great deal," he said, with an air of indifference. "She's a little too prying and curious; and I'm afraid, likes to gossip."

"Ah! I thought her particularly free from that vice."

"I had that impression also. But my interview this evening gave me a different estimate of her character."

"Did you come from Mrs. Denison's directly here?" asked Jessie in a changed tone, as if some thought of more than common interest had flitted through her mind. This change Dexter did not fail to observe.

"I did," was his answer.

"Then I may infer," said Jessie, "that your pressing desire to see me this evening has grown out of something you heard from the lips of Mrs. Denison. Am I right in this conclusion?"

Dexter was not quite prepared for this. After a slight hesitation he answered—

"Partly so."

The cold indifferent manner of Jessie Loring passed away directly.

"If you have anything to communicate, as of course you have, say on, Mr. Dexter."

As little prepared was he for this; and quite as little for the almost stately air with which Jessie drew up her slight form, returning his glances with so steady a gaze that his eyes fell.

The hour and the opportunity had come. But Leon Dexter had neither the manliness nor the courage to speak.

"Did Mrs. Denison introduce my name?" asked Jessie, seeing that her lover had failed to answer. There was not a quiver in her voice, nor the slightest failing in her eyes.

"Yes; casually." Dexter spoke with evasion.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing but what was good," said Dexter, now trying to resume his wonted pleasant exterior. "What else could she say? You look as if there had been a case of slander."

"She said something in connection with my name," answered Jessie firmly, "that disturbed you. Now as you have disclosed so much, I must know all."

"I have made no disclosures." Dexter seemed annoyed.

"You said you were at Mrs. Denison's."

"Yes."

"And said it with a meaning. I noticed both tone and manner. You came directly here, according to your own admission, and asked for me. Not being well, I desired to be excused. But you would take no excuse. Your manner to the servant was not only disturbed, but imperative. To me it is constrained, and altogether different from anything I have hitherto noticed. So much is disclosed. Now I wish you to go on and tell the whole story. Then we shall understand each other. What has Mrs. Denison said about me that has so ruffled your feelings?"

There was no retreat for the perplexed young man. He must go forward in some path—straight or tortuous—manly or evasive. There was too much apparent risk in the former; and so he chose the latter. All at once his exterior changed. The clouded brow put on a sunny aspect.

"Forgive me, dear Jessie!" he said with ardor, and a restored tenderness of manner. "True love has ever a touch of jealousy; and something that Mrs. Denison intimated aroused that darker passion. But the shadowed hour has passed, and I am in the clear sunlight again."

He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it with fervor.

"What did she intimate?" asked Miss Loring. Her manner was less excited, and her tone less imperative.

"What I now see to be false," said Dexter. "I was disturbed because I imagined intrigue, and a purpose to rob me of something I prize more dearly than life—the love of my Jessie."

"Intrigue!" was answered; "you fill me with surprise. Mrs. Denison, if I understand her, is incapable of anything so dishonorable."

"I don't know." Mr. Dexter spoke with the manner of one in doubt, and as if questioning his own thoughts. "She has filled my mind with dark suspicions. Why, Jessie!" and he assumed a more animated exterior, "she went so far as to intimate a disingenuous spirit in you!"

"In me!" Miss Loring's surprise was natural. "Disingenuousness!"

"That word is not the true one," said Dexter. "What she said meant something more."

"What?"

"That you were—but I will not pain your ears, darling! Forgive my foolish indignation. Love with me is so vital a thing, that the remotest suspicion of losing its object, brings smarting pain. You are all the world to me, Jessie, and the intimation"—

"Of what, Leon?"

He had left the sentence unfinished. Dexter was holding one of her hands. She did not attempt to withdraw it.

"That you were false to me!"

The words caused Miss Loring to spring to her feet. Bright spots burned on her cheeks, and her eyes flashed.

"False to you! What did she mean by such words?" was demanded.

"It was the entering wedge of suspicion," said Dexter. "But the trick has failed. My heart tells me that you are the soul of honor. If I was disturbed, is that a cause of wonder? Would not such an allegation against me have disturbed you? It would! But that your heart is pure and true as an angel's, I best know of all the living. Dear Jessie!" and he laid a kiss upon her burning cheek.

"I shall never cease to blame myself for the part I have played this evening. Had I loved you less I had been calmer."

"False in what way?" asked Miss Loring, unsatisfied with so vague an answer.

"False to your vows, of course. What else could she mean?"

"Did she say that?"

"No—of course not. But she conveyed the meaning as clearly as if she had uttered the plainest language."

"What were her words?" asked Miss Loring.

"I cannot repeat them. She spoke with great caution, keeping remote, as to words, from the matter first in her thought, yet filling my mind with vague distrust, or firing it with jealousy at every sentence."

"Can you fix a single clear remark—something that I can repeat?"

"Not one. The whole interview impresses me like a dream. Only the disturbance remains. But let it pass as a dream, darling—a nightmare created by some spirit of evil. A single glance into your dear face and loving eyes rebukes my folly and accuses me of wrong. We are all the world to each other, and no shadow even shall come again between our souls and happiness."

Jessie resumed her seat and questioned no farther. Was she satisfied with the explanation? Of course not. But her lover was adroit, and she became passive.

"You cannot wonder now," he said, "that I was so anxious to see you this evening. I might have spared you this interview, and it would have been better, perhaps, if I had done so. But excited lovers are not always the most reasonable beings in the world. I could not have slept to-night. Now I shall find the sweetest slumber that has yet refreshed my spirit—and may your sleep, dearest, be gentle as the sleep of flowers! I will leave you now, for I remember that you are far from being well this evening. It will grieve me to think that my untimely intrusion, and this disturbing hour, may increase the pain you suffer or rob you of a moment's repose.—Good night, love!" and he kissed her tenderly. "Good night, precious one!" he added. "May angels be your companions through the dark watches, and bring you to a glorious morning!"

He left her, and moved towards the door; yet lingered, for his mind was not wholly at ease in regard to the state of Jessie's feelings. She had not repelled him in any way—but his ardent words and acts were too passively received. She was standing where he had parted from her, with her eyes upon the floor.

"Jessie!"

She looked up.

"Good night, dear!"

"Good night, Mr. Dexter."

"Mr. Dexter!" The young man repeated the words between his teeth, as he passed into the street a moment afterwards. "Mr. Dexter! and in tones that were cold as an icicle!"

He strode away from the house of Mrs. Loring, but little comforted by his interview with Jessie, and with the fiend Jealousy a permanent guest in his heart.



CHAPTER X.

LEON DEXTER was not wrong in his suspicions. It was Hendrickson who visited Miss Loring on the evening of his interview with Mrs. Denison. The young man had striven, with all the power he possessed, to overcome his fruitless passion—but striven in vain.—The image of Miss Loring had burned itself into his heart, and become ineffaceable. The impression she had made upon him was different from that made by any woman he had yet chanced to meet, and he felt that, in some mysterious way, their destinies were bound up together. That, in her heart, she preferred him to the man who was about to sacrifice her at the marriage altar he no longer doubted.

"Is it right to permit this sacrifice?" The question had thrust itself upon him for days and weeks.

"Leon Dexter cannot fill the desire of her heart." Thus he talked with himself. "She does not love; and to such a woman marriage unblessed by love must be a condition worse than death. No—no! It shall not be! Steadily she is moving on, nerved by a false sense of honor; and unless some one comes to the rescue, the fatal vow will be made that seals the doom of her happiness and mine. It must not—shall not be! Who so fitting as I to be her rescuer? She loves me! Eyes, lips, countenance, tones, gestures, all have been my witnesses. Only an hour too late! Too late? No—no! I will not believe the words! She shall yet be mine!"

It was in this spirit, and under the pressure of such feelings, that Paul Hendrickson visited Jessie Loring on the night Dexter saw him enter the house. The interview was not a very long one, as the reader knows. He sent up his card, and Miss Loring returned for answer, that she would see him in a few moments. Full five minutes elapsed before she left her room. It had taken her nearly all that time to school her agitated feelings; for on seeing his name, her heart had leaped with an irrepressible impulse. She looked down into her heart, and questioned as to the meaning of this disturbance. The response was clear. Paul Hendrickson was more to her than any living man!

"He should have spared me an interview, alone," she said to herself. "Better for both of us not to meet."

This was her state of feeling, when after repressing, as far as possible, every unruly emotion, she left her room and took her way down stairs.

"Is not this imprudent?" The mental question arrested the footsteps of Miss Loring, ere she had proceeded five paces from the door of her chamber.

"Is not what imprudent?" was answered back in her thoughts.

"What folly is this!" she said, in self-rebuke, and passed onward.

"Miss Loring!" There was too much feeling in Hendrickson's manner. But its repression, under the circumstances, was impossible.

"Mr. Hendrickson!" The voice of Miss Loring betrayed far more of inward disturbance than she wished to appear.

Their hands met. They looked into each other's eyes—then stood for some moments in mutual embarrassment.

"You are almost a stranger," said Jessie, conscious that any remark was better, under the circumstances, than silence.

"Am I?" Hendrickson still held her hand, and still gazed into her eyes. The ardor of his glances reminded her of duty and of danger. Her hand disengaged itself from his—her eyes fell to the floor—a deep crimson suffused her countenance. They seated themselves—she on the sofa, and he on a chair drawn close beside, or rather nearly in front of her. How heavily beat the maiden's heart! What a pressure, almost to suffocation, was on her bosom! She felt an impending sense of danger, but lacked the resolution to flee.

"Miss Loring," said Hendrickson, his unsteady voice betraying his inward agitation, "when I last saw you"—

"Sir!" There was a sudden sternness in the young girl's voice, and a glance of warning in her eye. But the visitor was not to be driven from his purpose.

"It is not too late, Jessie Loring!" He spoke with eagerness.

She made a motion as if about to rise, but he said in a tone that restrained her.

"No, Miss Loring! You must hear what I have to say to-night."

She grew very pale; but looked at him steadily.

So unexpected were his intimations—so imperative his manner, that she was, in a degree, bereft for the time of will.

"You should have spared me this, Mr. Hendrickson," she answered, sadly, and with a gentle rebuke in her tones.

"I would endure years of misery to save you from a moment's pain!" was quickly replied. "And it is in the hope of being able to call down Heaven's choicest blessings on your head, that I am here to-night. Let me speak without reserve. Will you hear me?"

Miss Loring made no sigh; only her eyelids drooped slowly, until the bright orbs beneath were hidden and the dark lashes lay softly on her colorless cheeks.

"There is one thing, Miss Loring," he began, "known to yourself and me alone. It is our secret. Nay! do not go! Let me say on now, and I will ever after hold my peace. If this marriage contract, so unwisely made, is not broken, two lives will be made wretched—yours and mine. You do not love Mr. Dexter! You cannot love him! That were as impossible as for light to be enamored of dark"—

"I will not hear you!" exclaimed Miss Loring, starting to her feet. But Hendrickson caught her hand and restrained her by force.

"You must hear me!" he answered passionately.

"I dare not!"

"This once! I must speak now, and you must hear! God has given you freedom of thought and freedom of will. Let both come into their true activity. The holiest things of your life demand this, Miss Loring. Sit down and be calm again, and let us talk calmly. I will repress all excitement, and speak with reason. You shall hearken and decide. There—I thank you"—

Jessie had resumed her seat.

"We have read each other's hearts, Miss Loring," Hendrickson went on. His voice had regained its firmness, and he spoke in low, deep, emphatic tones. "I, at least, have read yours, and you know mine. Against your own convictions and your own feelings, you have been coerced into an engagement of marriage with a man you do not, and never can, love as a wife should love a husband. Consummate that engagement, and years of wretchedness lie before you. I say nothing of Mr. Dexter as regards honor, probity, and good feeling. I believe him to be a man of high integrity. His character before the world is blameless—his position one to be envied. But you do not love him—you cannot love him. Nay it is idle to repel the assertion. I have looked down too deeply into your heart. I know how its pulses beat, Jessie Loring! There is only one living man who has the power to unlock its treasures of affection. To all others it must remain eternally sealed. I speak solemnly—not vainly. And your soul echoes the truth of my words. It is not yet too late!"

"You should not have said this, Mr. Hendrickson!" Jessie resolutely disengaged the hand he had taken, and was clasping with almost vice-like pressure, and arose to her feet. He did not rise, but sat looking up into her pale suffering face, with the light of hope, which for a moment had flushed his own, fast decaying.

"You should not have said this, Mr. Hendrickson!" she repeated, in a steadier voice. "It is too late, and only makes my task the harder—my burden heavier. But God helping me, I will walk forward in the right path, though my feet be lacerated at every step."

"Is it a right path, Miss Loring? I declare it to be the wrong path!" said Hendrickson.

"Let God and my own conscience judge!" was firmly answered. "And now, sir, leave me. Oh, leave me."

"And you are resolute?"

"I am! God being my helper, I will go forward in the path of duty. When I faint and fall by the way through weakness, the trial will end."

"Friends, wealth, social attractions—all that the world can give will be yours. But my way must be lonely—my heart desolate. I shall be"—

"Go, sir!" Miss Loring's voice was imperative, and there was a flash like indignation in her eyes. "Go sir!" she repeated. "This is unmanly!"

The last sentence stung Mr. Hendrickson, and he arose quickly. Miss Loring, who saw the effect of her words, threw up, with a woman's quick instinct, this further barrier between them—

"I marvel, sir, knowing, as you do, the sacred obligations under which I rest, that you should have dared utter language such as my ears have been compelled to hear this night! I take it as no compliment, sir."

The young man attempted to speak; but with a sternness of manner that sent a chill to his heart, she motioned him to be silent, and went on—

"Let this, sir, be the last time you venture to repeat what I cannot but regard as dis"—

Dishonorable was the word on her lips, but she suddenly checked herself. She could not say that to him.

Waking or sleeping, alone or in society, for weeks, months and years afterwards, the image of that young man's despairing face, as she saw it then, was ever before her.

"Insult! Dishonor!" he said, as if speaking to himself. "I could die for her—but not that!—not that!"

And without a parting glance or a parting word, Paul Hendrickson turned from the woman who was destined to influence his whole life, and left her alone in his bewilderment and wretchedness. It is difficult to say on which heart the heaviest pressure fell, or which life was most hopeless. It is alleged that only men die of broken hearts—that women can bear the crushing heel of disappointment, live on and endure, while men fall by the way, and perish in the strife of passion. It may be so. We know not. In the present case the harder lot was on Miss Loring. If she bore her pain with less of exterior token, it is no argument in favor of the lighter suffering. The patiently enduring oftenest bear the most.



CHAPTER XI.

THE efforts which were made to save Miss Loring, only had the effect to render the sacrifice more acutely painful. Evil instead of good followed Mrs. Denison's appeals to Mr. Dexter. They served but to arouse the demon jealousy in his heart. Upon Hendrickson's movements he set the wariest surveillance. Twice, since that never-to-be-forgotten evening he met the young man in company when Jessie was present. With an eye that never failed for an instant in watchfulness, he noted his countenance and movements; and he kept on his betrothed as keen an observation. Several times he left her alone, in order to give Hendrickson an opportunity to get into her company. But there was too studied avoidance of contact. Had they met casually and exchanged a few pleasant words, suspicion would have been allayed. As it was, jealousy gave its own interpretation to their conduct.

On the last of these occasions referred to, from a position where he deemed himself beyond the danger of casual observation, Hendrickson searched with his eyes for the object of his undying regard. He saw her, sitting alone, not far distant. Her manner was that of one lost in thought—the expression of her countenance dreamy, and overcast with a shade of sadness. How long he had been gazing upon her face, the young man could not have told, so absorbed was he in the feelings her presence had awakened, when turning almost involuntarily his eyes caught the gleam of another pair of eyes that were fixed intently upon him. So suddenly had he turned, that the individual observing him was left without opportunity to change in any degree the expression of his eyes or countenance. It was almost malignant. That individual was Leon Dexter.

In spite of himself, Hendrickson showed confusion, and was unable to return the steady gaze that rested upon him. His eyes fell. When he looked up again, which was in a moment, Dexter had left his position, and was crossing the room towards Miss Loring.

"It is the fiend Jealousy!" said Hendrickson, as he withdrew into another room. "Well—let it poison all the springs of his happiness, as he has poisoned mine! I care not how keen may be his sufferings."

He spoke with exceeding bitterness.

A few weeks later, and the dreaded consummation came. In honor of the splendid alliance formed by her niece, Mrs. Loring gave a most brilliant wedding party, and the lovely bride stood forth in all her beauty and grace—the admired and the envied. A few thought her rather pale—some said her eyes were too dreamy—and a gossip or two declared that the rich young husband had only gained her person, while her heart was in the keeping of another. "She has not married the man, but his wealth and position!" was the unguarded remark of one of these thoughtless individuals; and by a singular fatality, the sentence reached the ears of Mr. Dexter. Alas! It was but throwing another fagot on the already kindling fires of unhallowed jealousy. The countenance of the young husband became clouded; and it was only by an effort that he could arouse himself, and assume a gay exterior. The prize after which he had sprung with such eager haste, distancing all competitors, was now his own. Binding vows had been uttered, and the minister had said—"What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Yet, even in his hour of triumph, came the troubled conviction that, though he had gained the beautiful person of his bride, he could not say surely that her more beautiful soul was all his own.

And so there was a death's head at his feast; and the costly wine was dashed with bitterness.

Of what was passing in the mind of Dexter his bride had no knowledge; nor did her keen instincts warn her that the demon of jealousy was already in his heart. Suffering, and the colder spirit of endurance that followed, had rendered her, in a certain sense, obtuse in this direction.

A full-grown, strong woman, had Jessie become suddenly. The gentle, tenderly-loving, earnest, simple-hearted girl, could never have sustained the part it was hers to play. Unless a new and more vigorous life had been born in her, she must have fallen. But now she stood erect, shading her heart from her own eyes, and gathering from principle strength for duty. Very pure—very true she was. Yet, in her new relation, purity and truth were shrined in a cold exterior. It were not possible to be otherwise. She did not love her husband in any thing like the degree she was capable of loving. It was not in him to find the deep places of her heart. But true to him she could be, and true to him it was her purpose to remain.

Taking all the antecedents of this case, we will not wonder, when told that quite from the beginning of so inharmonious a union, Dexter found himself disappointed in his bride. He was naturally ardent and demonstrative; while, of necessity, she was calm, cold, dignified—or simply passive. She was never unamiable or capricious; and rarely opposed him in anything reasonable or unreasonable. But she was reserved almost to constraint at times—a vestal at the altar, rather than a loving wife. He was very proud of her, as well he might be; for she grew peerless in beauty. But her beauty was from the development of taste, thought, and intellect. It was not born of the affections. Yes, Leon Dexter was sadly disappointed. He wanted something more than all this.

Lifted from an almost obscure position, as the dependent niece of Mrs. Loring, the young wife of Mr. Dexter found herself in a larger circle, and in the society of men and women of more generally cultivated tastes. She soon became a centre of attraction; for taste attracts taste, mind seeks mind. And where beauty is added, the possessor has invincible charms. It did not escape the eyes of Dexter that, in the society of other men, his young wife was gayer and more vivacious than when with him. This annoyed him so much, that he began to act capriciously, as it seemed to Jessie. Sometimes he would require her to leave a pleasant company long before the usual hour, and sometimes he would refuse to go with her to parties or places of amusement, yet give no reasons that were satisfactory. On these occasions, a moody spirit would come over him. If she questioned, he answered with evasion, or covert ill-nature.

The closer union of an external marriage did not invest the husband with any new attractions for his wife. The more intimately she knew him, the deeper became her repugnance. He had no interior qualities in harmony with her own. An intensely selfish man, it was impossible for him to inspire a feeling of love in a mind so pure in its impulses, and so acute in its perceptions. If Mrs. Dexter had been a worldly-minded woman—a lover of—or one moved by the small ambitions of fashionable life—her husband would have been all well enough. She would have been adjoined to him in a way altogether satisfactory to her tastes, and they would have circled their orbit of life without an eccentric motion. But the deeper capacities and higher needs of Mrs. Dexter, made this union quite another thing. Her husband had no power to fill her soul—to quicken her life-pulses—to stir the silent chords of her heart with the deep, pure, ravishing melodies they were made to give forth. That she was superior to him mentally, Mr. Dexter was not long in discovering. Very rapidly did her mind, quickened by a never-dying pain, spring forward towards its culmination. Of its rapid growth in power and acuteness, he only had evidence when he listened to her in conversation with men and women of large acquirements and polished tastes. Alone with him, her mind seemed to grow duller every day; and if he applied the spur, it was only to produce a start, not a movement onwards.

Alas for Leon Dexter! He had caged his beautiful bird; but her song had lost, already, its ravishing sweetness.



CHAPTER XII.

THE first year of trial passed. If the young wife's heart-history for that single year could be written, it would make a volume, every pages of which the reader would find spotted with his tears. No pen but that of the sufferer could write that history; and to her, no second life, even in memory, were endurable. The record is sealed up—and the story will not be told.

It is not within the range of all minds to comprehend what was endured. Wealth, position, beauty, admiration, enlarged intelligence, and highly cultivated tastes, were hers. She was the wife of a man who almost worshipped her, and who ceased not to woo her with all the arts he knew how to practise. Impatient he became, at times, with her impassiveness, and fretted by her coldness. Jealous of her he was always. But he strove to win that love which, ere his half-coercion of her into marriage, he had been warned he did not possess—but his strivings were in vain. He was a meaner bird, and could not mate with the eagle.

To Mrs. Dexter, this life was a breathing death. Yet with a wonderful power of endurance and self-control, she moved along her destined way, and none of the people she met in society—nor even her nearest friends—had any suspicion of her real state of mind. As a wife, her sense of honor was keen. From that virtuous poise, her mind had neither variableness nor shadow of turning. No children came with silken wrappings to hide and make softer the bonds that held her to her husband in a union that only death could dissolve; the hard, icy, galling links of the chain were ever visible, and their trammel ever felt. Cold and desolate the elegant home remained.

In society, Mrs. Dexter continued to hold a brilliant position. She was courted, admired, flattered, envied—the attractive centre to every circle of which she formed a part. Rarely to good advantage did her husband appear, for her mind had so far outrun his in strength and cultivation, that the contrast was seriously against him—and he felt it as another barrier between them.

One year of pride was enough for Mr. Dexter. A beautiful, brilliant, fashionable wife was rather a questionable article to place on exhibition; there was danger, he saw, in the experiment. And so he deemed it only the dictate of prudence to guard her from temptation. An incident determined him. They were at Newport, in the mid-season; and their intention was to remain there two weeks. They had been to Saratoga, where the beauty and brilliancy of Mrs. Dexter drew around her some of the most intelligent and attractive men there. All at once her husband suggested Newport.

"I thought we had fixed on next week," said Mrs. Dexter, in reply.

"I am not well," was the answer. "The sea air will do me good."

"We will go to-morrow, then," was the unhesitating response. Not made with interest or feeling; but promptly, as the dictate of wifely duty.

Just half an hour previous to this brief interview, Mr. Dexter was sitting in one of the parlors, and near him were two men, strangers, in conversation. The utterance by one of them of his wife's name, caused him to be on the instant all attention.

"She's charming!" was the response.

"One of the most fascinating women I have ever met! and my observation, as you know, is not limited. She would produce a sensation in Paris."

"Is she a young widow?"

"No—unfortunately."

"Who, or what is her husband?" was asked.

"A rich nobody, I'm told."

"Ah! He has taste."

"Taste in beautiful women, at least," was the rejoinder.

"Is he here?"

"I believe so. He would hardly trust so precious a jewel as that out of his sight. They say he is half-maddened by jealousy."

"And with reason, probably. Weak men, with brilliant, fashionable wives, have cause for jealousy. He's a fool to bring her right into the very midst of temptation."

"Can't help himself, I presume. It might not be prudent to attempt the caging system."

A low, chuckling laugh followed. How the blood did go rushing and seething through the veins of Leon Dexter!

"I intend to know more of her," was continued. "Where do they live?"

"In B—."

"Ah! I shall be there during the winter."

"She sees a great deal of company, I am told. Has weekly or monthly 'evenings' at which some of the most intellectual people in the city may be found."

"Easy of access, I suppose?"

"No doubt of it."

Dexter heard no more. On the next day he started with his wife for Newport. The journey was a silent one. They had ceased to converse much when alone. And now there were reasons why Mr. Dexter felt little inclination to intrude any common-places upon his wife.

They were passing into the hotel, on their arrival, when Mr. Dexter, who happened to be looking at his wife, saw her start, flush, and then turn pale. It was the work of an instant. His eyes followed the direction of hers, but failed to recognize any individual among the group of persons near them as the one who thus affected her by his presence. He left her in one of the parlors, while he made arrangements for rooms. In a few minutes he returned. She was sitting as he had left her, seeming scarcely to have stirred during his absence. Her eyes were on the floor, and when he said, "Come, Jessie!" she started and looked up at him, in a confused way.

"Our apartments are ready; come."

He had to speak a second time before she seemed to comprehend his meaning. She arose like one in deep thought, and moved along by her husband's side, leaving the parlor, and going up to the rooms which had been assigned to them. The change in her countenance and manner was so great, that her husband could not help remarking upon it.

"Are you not well, Jessie?" he asked, as she sat down with a weary air.

"Not very well," she answered—yet with a certain evasion of tone that repelled inquiry.

Mr. Dexter scanned her countenance sharply. She lifted her eyes at the moment to his face, and started slightly at the unusual meaning she saw therein. A flush betrayed her disturbed condition; and a succeeding pallor gave signs of unusual pain.

"Will you see a physician!"

"No—no!" she answered, quickly; "it was a momentary sickness—but is passing off now." She arose as she said this, and commenced laying aside her travelling garments. Mr. Dexter sat down, and taking a newspaper from his pocket, pretended to read; but his jealous eyes looked over the sheet, and rested with keen scrutiny on the face of his wife whenever it happened to be turned towards him. That she scarcely thought of his presence, was plain from the fact that she did not once look at him. Suddenly, as if some new thought had crossed his mind, Mr. Dexter arose, and after making some slight changes in his dress, left the apartment and went down stairs. He was evidently in search of some one; for he passed slowly, and with wary eyes, along the passages, porticos and parlors. The result was not satisfactory. He met several acquaintances, and lingered with each in conversation; but the watchful searching eyes were never a moment at rest.

The instant Mr. Dexter left the room, there was a change in his wife. The half indifferent, almost listless manner gave place to one that expressed deep struggling emotions. Her bent form became erect, and she stood for a little while listening with her eyes upon the door, as if in doubt whether her husband would not return. After the lapse of two or three minutes, she walked to the door, and placing her fingers on the key, turned it, locking herself in. This done, she retired slowly towards a lounge by the window, nearly every trace of excitement gone, and sitting down, was soon so entirely absorbed in thought as scarcely to show a sign of external life.

It was half an hour from the time Mr. Dexter left his wife, when he returned. His hand upon the lock aroused her from the waking dream into which she had fallen. As she arose, her manner began to change, and, ere she had reached the door, the quicker flowing blood was restoring the color to her cheeks. She had passed through a long and severe struggle; and woman's virtue, aided by woman's pride and will, had conquered.

Mrs. Dexter spoke to her husband cheerfully as he came in, and met his steady, searching look without a sign of confusion. He was at fault. Yet not deceived.

"Are you better?" he asked.

"Much better," she replied; and turning from him, went on with the arrangement of her toilet, which had been suspended from the period of her husband's absence, until his return. Mr. Dexter passed into their private parlor, adjoining the bedroom, and remained there until his wife had finished dressing.

"Shall we go down?" he inquired, as she came in looking so beautiful in his eyes that the very sight of her surpassing loveliness gave him pain. The Fiend was in his heart.

"Not now," she replied "I am still fatigued with the day's travel, and had rather not see company at present."

She glanced from the window.

"What a sublimity there is in the ocean!" she said, with an unusual degree of interest in her manner, when speaking to her husband. "I can never become so familiar with its grandeur and vastness, as to look upon its face without emotion. You remember Byron's magnificent apostrophe?—

"'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll.'"

And she repeated several of the stanzas from "Childe Harold," with an effect that stirred her husband's feelings more profoundly than they had ever been stirred by nature and poetry before.

"I have read and heard that splendid passage many times, but never with the meaning and power which your voice has lent to the poet's words," said Dexter, gazing with admiration upon his wife.

He sat down beside her, and took her hand in his. Her eyes wandered to his face, and lingered there as if she were searching the lineaments for a sign of something that her heart could take hold upon and cling to. And it was even so; for she felt that she needed strength and protection in an hour of surely coming trial. A feeble sigh and a drooping of the eyelids attested her disappointment. And yet as he leaned towards her she did not sit more erect, but rather suffered her body to incline to him. He still retained her hand, and she permitted him to toy with it, even slightly returning the pressure he gave.

"You shall be my teacher in the love of nature." He spoke with a glow of true feeling. "The lesson of this evening I shall never forget. Old ocean will always wear a different aspect in my eyes."

"Nature," replied Mrs. Dexter, "is not a mere dead symbol.—It is something more—an outbirth from loving principles—the body of a creating soul. The sea, upon whose restless surface we are gazing, is something more than a briny fluid, bearing ships upon its bosom—something more than a mirror for the arching heavens—something more than a symbol of immensity and eternity. There is a truth in nature far deeper, more divine, and of higher significance."

She paused, and for some moments her thoughts seemed floating away into a world, the real things of which our coarser forms but feebly represent.

"It must be so. I feel that it is so; yet what to you seems clear as the sunbeams, hides itself from me in dusky shadows. But say on Jessie. Your words are pleasant to my ears."

Mrs. Dexter seemed a little surprised at this language, for she turned her eyes from the sea to his face, and looked at him with a questioning gaze for some moments.

"This world is not the real world," she said, speaking earnestly and gazing at him intently to see how far his thought reflected hers.

"Is not this real?" Dexter asked, raising the hand of his wife and looking down upon it. "I call it a real hand."

"And I," said Mrs. Dexter, smiling, "call it only the appearance of a hand; it is the real hand that vitalizes and gives it power. This will decay—this appearance fade—but the real hand of my spirit will live on, immortal in its power as the human soul of which it makes a part."

"Into what strange labyrinths your mind is wandering Jessie!" said Mr. Dexter, a slight shade of disapproval in his voice. "I am afraid you are losing yourself."

"Rather say that I have been lost, and am finding myself in open paths, with the blue sky instead of forest foliage above me."

"Your language is a myth, Jessie. I never heard of your being lost. To me you have been ever present, walking in the sunlight, a divine reality. Not the mere appearance of a woman; but a real woman, and my wife. Pray do not lose yourself now! Do not recede from an actual flesh and blood existence into some world of dim philosophy whither I cannot go. I am not ready for your translation."

Mr. Dexter was half playful, half serious. His reply disappointed his wife. Her manner, warmer than usual, took on a portion of its old reserve. But she went on speaking.

"The immortal soul, spiritual in its essence, yet organized in all its minutest parts—cannot attain its full stature unless it receives immortal food. The aliments of mere sensual life are for the body, and the mind's lowest constituents of being; and they who are content to feed on husks must sort with the common herd. I have higher aspirations, my husband! I see within and above the animal and sensuous a real world of truth and goodness, where, and where only, the soul's immortal desires can be satisfied. With the key in my hand shall I not enter? The common air is too thick for me. I must perish or rise into purer atmospheres."

Mrs. Dexter paused, conscious that her husband did not appreciate her meanings. He was listening intently, and striving apparently after them; but to him only the things of sense were real; and he was not able to comprehend how lasting pleasure was to flow from the intellectual and spiritual. He did not answer, and she lapsed into silence; all the fine enthusiasm that had filled her countenance so full of a living beauty giving place to a cold, calm exterior. She had hoped to quicken her husband's sluggish perceptions, and to create in his mind an incipient love for the pure and beautiful things after which her own mind was beginning to aspire.

In her intercourse with refined and intellectual persons, Mrs. Dexter had made the acquaintance of a lady named Mrs. De Lisle. Her residence was not far from Mrs. Dexter's and they met often for pleasant and profitable conversation. In Mrs. De Lisle, Mrs. Dexter found a woman of not only superior attainments, but one possessing great purity of mind, and a high religious sense of duty. What struck her in the very beginning was a new mode of weighing human actions, and a quiet looking beneath the surface of things, and estimating all she saw by the quality within instead of by the appearance without. From the first, Mrs. Dexter was strongly attracted by this lady; and it was a little remarkable that her husband was as strongly repelled. He did not like her; and often spoke of her sneeringly as using an unknown tongue. His wife contended with him slightly at first in regard to Mrs. De Lisle; but soon ceased to notice his captious remarks.

In Mrs. De Lisle, the struggling and suffering young creature had found a true friend—not true in the sense of a weakly, sympathizing friend, but more really true; one who could lift her soul up into purer regions, and help it to acquire strength for duty.

There was another lady named Mrs. Anthony who had insinuated herself into the good opinion of Mrs. Dexter, and partially, also, into her confidence.

It does not take a quick-sighted woman long to comprehend the true marital standing of the friend in whom she feels an interest. Both Mrs. De Lisle and Mrs. Anthony soon discovered that no love was in the heart of Mrs. Dexter, and that consequently, no interior marriage existed. They saw also that Mr. Dexter was inferior, selfish, captious at times, and kept his wife always under surveillance, as if afraid of her constancy. The different conduct of the ladies, touching this relation of Mrs. Dexter to her husband, was in marked contrast. While Mrs. De Lisle never approached the subject in a way to invite communication, Mrs. Anthony, in the most adroit and insinuating manner, almost compelled a certain degree of confidence—or at least admission that there was not and never could be, any interior conjunction between herself and husband.

Mrs. Anthony was a highly intellectual and cultivated woman, with fascinating manners, a strong will, and singularly fine conversational powers. She usually exercised a controlling influence over all with whom she associated. Happy it was for Mrs. Dexter that a friend like Mrs. De Lisle came to her in the right time, and filled her mind with right principles for her own pure instincts to rest upon as an immovable foundation.

An hour spent in company with Mrs. Anthony always left Mrs. Dexter in a state of disquietude, and suffering from a sense of restriction and wrong. A feeling of alienation from her husband ever accompanied this state, and her spirit beat itself about, striking against the bars of conventional usage, until the bruised wings quivered with pain. But an hour spent with Mrs. De Lisle left her in a very different state. True thoughts were stirred, and the soul lifted upwards into regions of light and beauty. There was no grovelling about the earth, no fanning of selfish fires into smoky flames, no probing of half-closed wounds until the soul writhed in a new-born anguish—but instead, hopeful words, lessons of duty, and the introduction of an ennobling spiritual philosophy, that gave strength and tranquillity for the present, and promised the soul's highest fruition in the surely coming future.

Both Mrs. De Lisle and Mrs. Anthony were at Saratoga. The announcement of Mrs. Dexter that she was going to leave for Newport so suddenly surprised them both, as it had been understood that she was to remain for some time longer.

"My husband wishes to visit Newport now," was the answer of Mrs. Dexter to the surprised exclamation of Mrs. Anthony.

"Tell him that you wish to remain here," replied Mrs. Anthony.

"He is not well, and thinks the sea air will do him good."

"Not well! I met him an hour ago, and never saw him looking better in my life. Do you believe him?"

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Dexter.

Her friend laughed lightly, and then murmured—

"Simpleton! He's only jealous, and wants to get you away from your admirers. Don't go."

Mrs. Dexter laughed with affected indifference, but her color rose.

"You wrong him," she said.

"Not I," was answered. "The signs are too apparent. I am a close observer, my dear Mrs. Dexter, and know the meaning of most things that happen to fall within the range of my observation. Your husband is jealous. The next move will be to shut you up in your chamber, and set a guard before the house. Now if you will take my advice, you'll say to this unreasonable lord and master of yours, 'Please to wait, sir, until I am ready to leave Saratoga. It doesn't suit me to do so just now. If you need the sea, run away to Newport and get a dash of old ocean. I require Congress water a little longer.' That's the way to talk, my little lady. But don't for Heaven's sake begin to humor his capricious fancies. If you do, it's all over."

Mrs. De Lisle was present, but made no remark. Mrs. Dexter parried her friend's admonition with playful words.

"Will you come to my room when disengaged?" said the former, as she rose to leave the parlor where they had been sitting.

"I will."

Mrs. De Lisle withdrew.

"You'll get a sermon on obedience to husbands," said Mrs. Anthony, tossing her head and smiling a pretty, half sarcastic smile. "I've one great objection to our friend."

"What is it?" inquired Mrs. Dexter.

"She's too proper."

"She's good," said Mrs. Dexter.

"I'll grant that; but then she's too good for me. I like a little wickedness sometimes. It's spicy, and gives a flavor to character."

Mrs. Anthony laughed one of her musical laughs. But growing serious in a moment, she said—

"Now, don't let her persuade you to humor that capricious husband of yours. You are something more than an appendage to the man. God gave you mind and heart, and created you an independent being. And a man is nothing superior to this, that he should attempt to lord it over his equal. I have many times watched this most cruel and exacting of all tyrannies, and have yet to see the case where the yielding wife could ever yield enough. Take counsel in time, my friend. Successful resistance now, will cost but a trifling effort."

Mrs. Dexter neither accepted nor repelled the advice; but her countenance showed that the remarks of Mrs. Anthony gave no very pleasant hue to her thoughts.

"Excuse me," she said rising, "I must see Mrs. De Lisle."

Mrs. Anthony raised her finger, and gave Mrs. Dexter a warning look, as she uttered the words—

"Don't forget."

"I won't," was answered.

Mrs. De Lisle received her with a serious countenance.

"You go to Newport in the morning?" she spoke, half-questioning and half in doubt.

"Yes."

The countenance of Mrs. De Lisle brightened.

"I thought," she said, after a pause, "that I knew you."

She stopped, as if in doubt whether to go on.

Mrs. Dexter looked into her face a moment.

"You understand me?" Mrs. De Lisle added.

"I do."

Mrs. Dexter betrayed unusual emotion.

"Forgive me," said her friend, "if I have ventured on too sacred ground. You know how deeply I am interested in you."

Tears filled the eyes of Mrs. Dexter; her lips quivered; every muscle of her face betrayed an inward struggle.

"Dear friend!" Mrs. De Lisle reached out her hands, and Mrs. Dexter leaned forward against her, hiding her face upon her breast. And now strong spasms thrilled her frame; and in weakness she wept—wept a long, long time. Nature had her way. But emotion spent itself, and a deep calm followed.

"Dear, patient, much-enduring, true-hearted friend!"

Mrs. De Lisle spoke almost in a whisper, her lips, close to the ear of Mrs. Dexter. The words, or at least some of them, had the effect to rouse the latter from her half lethargic condition. Lifting her face from the bosom of her friend, she looked up and said—

Patient? Much enduring?

"Is it not so? God give you wisdom, hope, triumph! I have looked into your heart many times, Mrs. Dexter. Not curiously, not as a study, not to see how well you could hide from common eyes its hidden anguish, but in deep and loving compassion, and with a strong desire to help and counsel. Will you admit me to a more sacred friendship?"

"Oh, yes! Gladly! Thankfully!" replied Mrs. Dexter. "How many, many times have I desired to open my heart to you; but dared not. Now, if you have its secret, gained by no purposed act of mine, I will accept the aid and counsel."

"You do not love," said Mrs. De Lisle—not in strong, emphatic utterance—not even calmly—but in a low, almost reluctant voice.

"I am capable of the deepest love," was answered.

"I know it."

"What then?" Mrs. Dexter spoke with some eagerness.

"You are a wife."

"I am," with coldness.

"By your own consent?"

"It was extorted. But no matter. I accepted my present relation; and I mean to abide the contract. Oh, my friend! you know not the pain I feel in thus speaking, even to you. This is a subject over which I drew the veil of what I thought to be eternal silence. You have pushed it aside—not roughly, not with idle curiosity, but as a loving friend and counsellor. And now if you can impart strength or comfort, do so; for both are needed."

"The language of Mrs. Anthony pained me," said Mrs. De Lisle.

"Not more than it pained me," was the simple answer.

"And yet, Mrs. Dexter, though I observed you closely, I did not see the indignant flush on your face, that I had hoped to see mantling there."

"It was a simple schooling of the exterior. I felt that she was venturing on improper ground; but I did not care to let my real sentiments appear. Mrs. Anthony lacks delicacy in some things."

"Her remarks I regarded as an outrage. But seriously, Mrs. Dexter, is your husband so much inclined to jealousy?"

"I am afraid so."

"Do you think his purpose to leave Saratoga in the morning, springs from this cause?"

"I am not aware of any circumstance that should give rise to sudden apprehension in his mind. There is no one that I have remarked as offering me particular attentions. I am here, and cannot help the fact that gentlemen of superior taste, education, and high mental accomplishments, seem pleased with my society. I like to meet such persons—I enjoy the intercourse of mind with mind. It is the only compensating life I have. In it I forget for a little while my heart's desolation. In all that it is possible for me to be true to my husband, I am true; and I pray always that God will give me strength to endure even unto the end. His fears wrong me! There is not one of the scores of attractive men who crowd around me in public, who has the power, by look, or word, or action, to stir my heart with even the lightest throb of tender feeling. I have locked the door, and the key is hidden."

Mrs. De Lisle did not answer, for some time.

"Your high sense of honor, pure heart, and womanly perceptions, are guiding you right, I see!" she then remarked; "the ordeal is terrible, but you will pass through unscathed."

"I trust so!" was murmured in a sad voice; "I trust to keep my garments unspotted. Without blame, or suspicion of wrong, I cannot hope to move onward in my difficult way. Nor can I always hope to be patient under captious treatment, and intimations of unfaithfulness. The last will doubtless come; for when the fiend jealousy has enthroned itself in a man's heart, the most common-place actions may be construed into guilty concessions. All this will be deeply humiliating; and I know myself well enough to apprehend occasional indignant reactions, or cool defiances. I possess a high, proud spirit, which, if fairly aroused, is certain to lead me into stubborn resistance. So far I have managed to hold this spirit in abeyance; but if matters progress as they have begun, the climax of endurance will ere long be reached."

"Great circumspection on your part will be needed," said Mrs. De Lisle. "Remember always, your obligations as a wife. In consenting to enter into the most solemn human compact that is ever made, you assumed a position that gave you power over the happiness of another. If, as I gather from some things you have said, you went to the altar under constraint, an unloving bride, so much the more binding on you are the promises then made to seek your husband's happiness—even at the sacrifice of your own. In that act you wronged him—wronged him as no woman has a right to wrong any man, and you can never do enough by way of reparation."

"I was wronged," said Mrs. Dexter, her glance brightening, and a warmth, like indignation, in her voice; "for I was dragged to that marriage-altar against my will, and almost under protest. Mr. Dexter knew that my heart was not his."

"You were a free woman!" replied Mrs. De Lisle.

"I was not free," Mrs. Dexter answered.

"Not free? Who or what constrained you to such an act?"

"My honor. In a moment of weakness, and under the fascination of a strong masculine will, I plighted faith with Mr. Dexter. He knew at the time that I did not love him as a woman should love the man she consents to marry. He knew that he was extorting an unwilling consent. And just so far he took an unmanly advantage of a weak young girl. But the contract once made, truth and honor required its fulfillment. At least, so said my aunt, to whom alone I confided my secret; and so said my stern convictions of duty."

"So far from that," replied Mrs. De Lisle, "truth and honor required its non-fulfillment; for neither in truth nor in honor, could you take the marriage vows."

The directness with which Mrs. De Lisle stated this position of the case, startled her auditor.

"Is it not so?" was calmly asked. "You are too much in the habit of looking below the surface of things, to regard the formula of marriage as an unmeaning array of words. In their full signification, you could not utter the sentences you were required to speak—how then, as regarding truth and honor, could you pronounce them in that act of your life which, of all others, should have been most without guile? I would have torn all such extorted promises into a thousand tatters, and scattered them to the winds! The dishonor of breaking them were nothing to the wrong of fulfillment. Witness your unhappy lives!"

"Would to heaven you had been the friend of my girlhood!"

It was all the reply Mrs. Dexter made, as she bowed her head, like one pressed down by a heavy burden.

"You will now comprehend, more clearly than before," said Mrs. De Lisle, "your present duty to your husband. He thought that he was gaining a wife, and you, in wedding him promised to him to be a wife—promised with a deep conviction in your soul that the words were empty utterances. The case is a sad one, viewed in any aspect; but pardon me for saying, that you were most to blame. He was an ardent lover, whom you had fascinated; a man of superficial character, and not competent, at the time, to weigh the consequences of an act he was so eager to precipitate. To possess, he imagined was to enjoy. But you were better versed in the heart's lore, and knew he would wake up, ere many moons had passed, to the sad discovery that what he had wooed as substance was only a cheating shadow. And he is waking up. Every day he is becoming more and more clearly convinced that you do not love him, and can never be to him the wife he had fondly hoped to gain. Have you not laid upon yourself a binding obligation? Is it a light thing so to mar the whole life of man? Your duty is plain, Mrs. Dexter. Yield all to him you can, and put on towards him always the sunniest aspects and gentlest semblances of your character. If he is capricious, humor him; if suspicious, act with all promptness in removing suspicion to the extent of your power. Make soft the links of the chain that binds you together, with downy coverings. Truth, honor, duty, religion, all require this."

"Dear friend!" said Mrs. Dexter, grasping the hand of Mrs. De Lisle, "you have lifted me out of a thick atmosphere, through which my eyes saw everything in an uncertain light, up into a clear seeing region. Yes, truth, honor, duty, religion, all speak to my convictions; and with all the truth that in me lieth, will I obey their voice. But love is impossible, and its semblance in me is so faint that my husband cannot see the likeness. There lies the difficulty. He wants a fond, tender, loving wife—a pet and a plaything. These he can never find in me; for, Heaven help me! Mrs. De Lisle, his sphere grows more and more repulsive every day, and I shudder sometimes at the thought of unmitigated disgust!"

"Do your best, my friend," was the answer of of Mrs. De Lisle. "Fill, to the utmost of your ability, all your wifely relations, and seek to develop in your husband those higher qualities of thought and feeling to which your spirit can attach itself. And above all, do not listen to such erroneous counsels as Mrs. Anthony gave just now. If followed they will surely produce a harvest of misery."

"Thanks, good counsellor! I will heed your words. They come in the right time, and strengthen my better purposes," said Mrs. Dexter. "To-morrow I shall leave with my husband for Newport, and he shall see in me no signs of reluctance. Nor do I care, except to leave your company. I will find as much to keep my thoughts busy at Newport as here."



CHAPTER XIII.

THE effort to interest her husband in things purely intellectual failed, and a shade of disappointment settled on the feelings of Mrs. Dexter. She soared, altogether, too far up into the mental atmosphere for him. He thought her ideal and transcendental; and she felt that only the sensual principles in his mind were living and active. Conversation died between them, and both relapsed into that abstracted silence—musing on one side and moody on the other—which filled so large a portion of their time when together.

"Shall we go down to the parlors?" said Mr. Dexter, rousing himself. "The afternoon is running away fast towards evening."

"I am more fatigued than usual," was answered, "and do not care to make my appearance before tea-time. You go down; and I will occupy myself with a book. When the tea-bell rings, I will wait for you to come and escort me to the table."

Mr. Dexter did not urge his wife to leave their rooms, but went down as she had suggested. The moment he left her, there occurred a great change in her whole appearance. She was sitting on a lounge by the window. Instead of rising to get a book, or seeking for any external means of passing a solitary hour, she shrunk down in her seat, letting her eyes droop gradually to the floor. At first, her countenance was disturbed; but its aspect changed to one of deep abstraction. And thus she sat for nearly an hour. The opening of her room door startled her into a life of external consciousness. Her husband entered. She glanced at his face, and saw that something had occurred to ruffle his feelings. He looked at her strangely for some moments, as if searching for expected meanings in her countenance.

"Are you not well?" Mrs. Dexter asked.

"Oh, yes, I'm well enough," he answered with unusual abruptness of manner.

She said no more, and he commenced pacing the floor of their small parlor backwards and forwards with restless footsteps.

Once, without moving her head or body, Mrs. Dexter stole a glance towards her husband; she encountered his eyes turning stealthily upon her, and scanning her face with an earnest scrutiny. A moment their eyes lingered, mutually spell-bound, and then the glances were mutually withdrawn. Mr. Dexter continued his nervous perambulations, and his wife remained seated and silent.

The ringing of the bell announced tea. Mr. Dexter paused, and Mrs. Dexter, rising without remark, took his arm, and they went down to the dining-hall, neither of them speaking a word. On taking her place at the table, Mrs. Dexter's eyes ran quickly up and down the lines of faces opposite.

This was done with so slight a movement of the head, that her husband, who was on the alert, did not detect the rapid observation. For some three or four minutes the guests came filing in, and all the while Mrs. Dexter kept glancing from face to face. She did not move her head or seem interested in the people around her; but her eyes told a very different story. Twice the waiter asked if she would take tea or coffee, before she noticed him, and her answer, "Coffee," apprised her watchful husband of the fact that she was more than usually lost in thought.

"Not coffee?" Mr. Dexter bent to his wife's ear.

"No, black tea," she said, quickly, partly turning to the waiter. "I was not thinking," she added, speaking to her husband. At the moment Mrs. Dexter turned towards the waiter, she leaned forward, over the table, and gave a rapid glance down at the row of faces on that side; and in replying to her husband, she managed to do the same thing for the other end of the table. No change in her countenance attested the fact that her search for some desired or expected personage had been successful. The half emptied cup of tea, and merely broken piece of toast lying on her plate, showed plainly enough that either indisposition or mental disturbance, had deprived her of appetite.

From the tea table they went to one of the parlors. Only a few gentlemen and ladies were there, most of the guests preferring a stroll out of doors, or an evening drive.

"Shall we ride? It is early yet, and the full moon will rise as the sun goes down."

"I have ridden enough to day," Mrs. Dexter answered. "Fatigue has made me nervous. But don't let that prevent your taking a drive."

"I shall not enjoy it unless you are with me," said Mr. Dexter.

"Then I will go." Mrs. Dexter did not speak fretfully, nor in the martyr tone we often hear, but in a voice of unexpected cheerfulness. "Order the carriage," she added, as she rose; "I will get my bonnet and shawl, and join you here by the time it is at the door."

"No—no, Jessie! Not if you are so fatigued. I had forgotten our journey to-day," interposed Mr. Dexter.

"A ride in the bracing salt air will do me good, perhaps. I am, at least, disposed to make the trial. So order the carriage, and I will be with you in a moment."

Mrs. Dexter spoke with a suddenly outflashing animation, and then left her husband to make preparations for accompanying him in the drive. She had passed through the parlor door on to one of the long porticoes of the building, and was moving rapidly, when, just before reaching the end, where another door communicated with a stairway, she suddenly stood still, face to face with a man who had stepped from that door out upon the portico.

"Jess—Mrs. Dexter!" the man checked the unguarded utterance of her familiar Christian name, and gave the other designation.

"Mr. Hendrickson!"

Only for an instant did Mrs. Dexter betray herself; but in that instant her heart was read, as if a blaze of lightning had flashed over one of its pages, long hidden away in darkness, and revealed the writing thereon in letters of gleaming fire.

"You arrived to day?" Mr. Hendrickson also regained the even balance of mind which had momentarily been lost, and regained it as quickly as the lady. He spoke with the pleased air of an acquaintance—nothing more.

"This afternoon," replied Mrs. Dexter in a quiet tone, and with a smile in which no casual observer could have seen anything deeper than pleasant recognition.

"How long will you remain?"

"It is not certain; perhaps until the season closes."

Mrs. Dexter made a motion to pass on. Mr. Hendrickson raised his hat and bowed very respectfully; and thus the sudden interview ended.

Mr. Dexter had followed his wife to the door of the parlor, and stood looking at her as she retired along the portico. This meeting with Hendrickson was therefore in full view. A sudden paleness overspread his countenance; and from his convulsed lips there fell a bitter imprecation.

On reaching her apartments, Mrs. Dexter was so weak that she was forced to sit down upon the first chair she could obtain. A dead pallor was in her face.

"Oh, give me strength—self control—motives to duty!"—in weakness and fear her quivering heart cried upwards.

"Jessie!" How long she had been sitting thus Mrs. Dexter knew not. She started. It was the voice of her husband.

"Not ready yet, I see!" His tones were rough—his manner excited. "And the carriage has stood at the door for ten minutes."

"I am ready!" she answered, starting up, and lifting her bonnet from the bed.

"It is no matter now. The sun is setting, and I have ordered the carriage back to the stable. You only consented to go on my account; and I am impatient under mere acquiescence."

"You wrong me, Mr. Dexter," said his wife, with unusual earnestness of manner. "I am ready to go with you at all times; and I strive in all things to give you pleasure. Did I hesitate a moment when you suddenly declared your wish to leave Saratoga for Newport?"

"No, of course you did not; for you were too glad of the opportunity to get here." There was a strange gleam in the eyes of Mr. Dexter as he said this; and his voice had in it an angry bitterness never before observed.

"What do you mean, sir?" demanded the outraged wife, turning upon her husband abruptly, and showing an aspect so stern and fierce, that the astonished man retreated a pace or two as if in fear. Never before had he seen in that beautiful face the reflection of a spirit so wildly disturbed by passion.

"Speak out, Leon Dexter! What do you mean?"

And her eyes rested on his with a glance as steady as an eagle's.

"I saw your meeting a little while ago."

Mr. Dexter rallied a little.

"What meeting?" There was no betraying sign in Mrs. Dexter's face, nor the least faltering in her tones.

"Your meeting with him."

"With whom? Speak out plainly, sir! I am in no mood for trifling, and in no condition for solving riddles."

"With Paul Hendrickson." Dexter pronounced the name slowly, and with all the meaning emphasis he could throw into his voice.

"Well, sir, what of that?" Still neither eye nor voice faltered.

"Much! You see that I understand you!"

"I see that you do not understand me," was firmly answered. "And now, sir, will you suffer me to demand an explanation of your language just now. I want no evasion—no faltering—no holding back. 'Too glad of an opportunity to get here!' That was the sentence. Its meaning, sir?"

The small head of Mrs. Dexter was erect; her nostrils distended; her lips closely laid upon each other; her eyes full fixed and almost fiery in their intense light. Suddenly she was transformed in the eyes of her husband from a yielding, gentle, though cold woman into the very spirit of accusation and defiance. He was silent; for he saw that he had gone too far.

"That must be explained, sir!" She was not to be turned aside. "I have noted your capricious conduct; your singular glances at times; your strange moodiness without apparent cause. A little light has given a faint impression of their meaning. But I must have the full blaze of your thoughts. Nothing else will satisfy me now."

She paused. Mr. Dexter had indeed gone a step too far, a fact of which he was painfully aware. He had conjured up a spirit that it might not be easy to lay.

"You are too excited. Calm yourself," he said.

Turning from her husband, Mrs. Dexter crossed the room, and seating herself upon a sofa, said, in a quiet way—

"Sit down beside me, Mr. Dexter. I am calm. Sit down and speak; for your recent language must be explained. Evasion will be fruitless—I will not accept of it."

"I spoke hastily. Forget my words."

Mr. Dexter sat down beside his wife, and spoke in a gentle soothing manner.

"It is all in vain, Mr. Dexter! All in vain! Yours were no idle words; and I can never forget them. You have greatly misapprehended your wife, I see; and the quicker you know this the better it will be for both of us. The time has come for explanation—and it shall be made! Why did I wish to come to Newport?"

"You knew that Paul Hendrickson was here," said Mr. Dexter; "that was the reason!"

"It is false, sir!" was the quick and sharp rejoinder.

"Jessie! beware how you speak!" The angry blood mounted to the very brow of the husband.

"It is false, sir!" she repeated, even more emphatically, if that were possible. "Of his movements I am as ignorant as you are!"

"I cannot tamely bear such words," said Mr. Dexter, still much excited.

"And I will not bear such imputations," was firmly rejoined.

Mr. Dexter arose, and commenced the unsatisfactory movement of pacing the floor. Mrs. Dexter remained sitting firmly erect, her eyes following the form of her husband.

"We will drop the subject now and forever," said the former, stopping, at length, in front of his wife.

Mrs. Dexter did not reply.

"I may have been too hasty."

"May have been!" There was contempt on the lip, and indignation in the voice of Mrs. Dexter.

"Yes, may. We are certain of nothing in this world," said her husband, coldly; "and now, as I said, we will drop the subject."

"It is easier to say than to unsay, Mr. Dexter. The sentiment is very trite, but it involves a world of meaning sometimes, and"—she paused, then added, with marked emphasis—"does now!"

Mr. Dexter made no response, and there the matter ended for the time; each of the ill-assorted partners farther from happiness than they had yet been since the day of their unfortunate union.



CHAPTER XIV.

AN hour later: Scene, the public parlor.

"Mrs. Dexter."

The lady rose, a pleasant smile animating her face, and returned the gentleman's courteous greeting.

"Mr. Hendrickson." Yes, that was the name on her lips.

"You arrived to-day," he said, and he took a place at the other end of the tete-a-tete.

"Yes."

"From Saratoga, I believe?"

"Yes. How long have you been at Newport?"

"I arrived only this morning. You are looking very well, Mrs. Dexter."

"Am I?"

"Yes. Time lays his hands upon you lightly!"

The shadow of another's presence came between them.

"Mr. Dexter, my husband; Mr. Hendrickson, from B—," said Mrs. Dexter, with the most perfect ease of manner, presenting the two gentlemen. They had met before, as the reader knows, and had good reason for remembering each other. They touched hands, Dexter frowning, and Hendrickson slightly embarrassed. Mrs. Dexter entirely herself, smiling, talkative, and with an exterior as unruffled as a mountain lake.

"How long will you remain?" she asked, speaking to Mr. Hendrickson.

"Several days."

"Ah! I am pleased to hear you say so. I left some very pleasant friends at Saratoga, but yours is the only familiar face I have yet seen here."

"I saw Mr. and Mrs. Florence just now," said Mr. Dexter.

"Did you?"

"Yes. There they are, at the lower end of the parlor. Do you see them?"

Mrs. Dexter turned her eyes in the direction indicated by her husband, and replied in an indifferent manner:

"Oh, yes."

"Mrs. Florence is looking at you now. Won't you go over and see her?"

"After a while," replied Mrs. Dexter. Then turning to Mr. Hendrickson, she said:

"These summer resorts are the dullest places imaginable without congenial friends."

"So I should think. But you can scarcely know the absence of these. I heard of you at Saratoga, as forming the centre of one of the most agreeable and intelligent circles there."

"Ah!" Mrs. Dexter was betrayed into something like surprise.

"Yes. I saw Miss Arden in New York, as I came through. She had been to Saratoga."

"Miss Arden? I don't remember her," said Mrs. Dexter.

"She resides in B—."

"Miss Arden? Miss Arden?" Mrs. Dexter seemed curious. "What is her appearance?"

"Tall, with a very graceful figure. Complexion dark enough to make her pass for a brunette. Large black eyes and raven hair."

"In company with her mother?" said Mrs. Dexter.

"Yes."

"I remember her now. She was quite the belle at Saratoga. But I was not so fortunate as to make her acquaintance. She sings wonderfully. Few professional artists are so gifted."

"You have used the right word," said Mr. Hendrickson. "Her musical powers are wonderful. I wish you knew her, she is a charming girl."

"You must help me to that knowledge on our return to B—."

"Nothing would give me more pleasure. I am sure you will like each other," said Hendrickson, warmly.

From that point in the conversation Mrs. Dexter began to lose her self-possession, and free, outspoken manner. The subject was changed, but the airiness of tone and lightness of speech was gone. Just in time, Mrs. Florence came across the room, joined the circle, and saving her from a betrayal of feelings that she would not, on any account, have manifested.

Mrs. Florence was a woman of taste. She had been in New York a few days previously, whither she had gone to hear a celebrated European singer, whose fame had preceded her. Her allusion to this fact led to an introduction of the subject of music. Hendickson made some remarks that arrested her attention, when quite an animated conversation sprung up between them. Mrs. Dexter did not join in it; but sat a closely observant listener. The young man's criticisms on the art of music surprised her. They were so new, so analytical, and so comprehensive. He had evidently studied the subject, not as an artist, but as a philosopher—but with so clear a comprehension of the art, that from the mere science, he was able to lead the mind upward into the fullest appreciation of the grander ideal.

Now and then as he talked, Mr. Dexter passed in a brief sentence; but to the keen, intelligent perception of his wife, what mere sounding words were his empty common-places! The contrast between him and Hendrickson was painful. It was in vain that she tried not to make this contrast. It thrust itself upon her, in spite of all resistance.

Mr. Florence had crossed the room with his wife, and joined the little circle. He did not take part in the conversation, and now said, rising as he spoke.

"Come, Dexter; let's you and I have a game of billiards."

He laid his band familiarly on the arm of Mr. Dexter, and that individual could not refuse to accept the invitation. They left the room together. This withdrawal of Mr. Dexter put both his wife and Mr. Hendrickson more at their ease. Both felt his absence as a relief. For a time the conversation was chiefly conducted by the latter and Mrs. Florence, only an occasional remark falling from the lips of Mrs. Dexter, and that almost extorted by question or reference. But gradually she was drawn in, and led on, until she was the talker and they the listeners.

When interested in conversation, a fine enthusiasm always gave to the manners of Mrs. Dexter a charming grace, and to her beautiful countenance a higher beauty. She was almost fascinating. Never had Hendrickson felt her power as he felt it now, while looking into her animated face, and listening to sentiment, description, criticism or anecdote, flowing from her lips in eloquent language, and evincing a degree of taste, discrimination, refinement and observation he could scarcely have imagined in one of her age.

He was leaning towards her, and listening with rapt interest, his countenance and eyes full of admiration, when a quick, impatient ahem caused him to look up. As he did so, he encountered the severe face and piercing eyes of Mr. Dexter. The sudden change in the expression of his countenance warned Mrs. Dexter of the presence of her husband, who had approached quietly, and was standing a pace or two behind his wife. But not the slightest consciousness of this presence did her manner exhibit. She kept on talking as before, and talking to Mr. Hendrickson.

"Will you go with me now, Mrs. Dexter?" said her husband, coming forward, and making a motion as if about to offer his arm.

"Not yet if you please, Mr. Dexter," was smilingly answered. "I am too much interested in this good company. Come, sit down here," and she made room for him on the sofa.

But he stood still.

"Then amuse yourself a little longer," said his wife, in a gay voice. "I will be ready to go with you after a while."

Mr. Dexter moved away, disappointed, and commenced pacing the floor of the long parlor. At every turn his keen eyes took in the aspect of the little group, and particularly the meaning of his wife's face, as it turned to Mr. Hendrickson, either in the play of expression or warm with the listener's interest. The sight half maddened him. Three times, in the next half hour, he said to his wife, as he paused in his restless promenade before her—

"Come, Jessie."

But she only threw him a smiling negative, and became still more interesting to her friends. At last, and of her own will, she arose, and bowing, with a face all smiles and eyes dancing in light, to Mr. Hendrickson and Mrs. Florence, she stepped forward, and placing her hand on the arm of her husband, went like a sunbeam from the room.



CHAPTER XV.

"MADAM!"

They had reached their own apartments, and Mrs. Dexter was moving forward past her husband. The stern imperative utterance caused her to pause and turn round.

"We leave for home in the morning!" said Mr. Dexter.

"We?" His wife looked at him fixedly as she made the simple interrogation.

"Yes, we!" was answered, and in the voice of one who had made up his mind, and did not mean to be thwarted in his purpose.

"Mr. Dexter!" his wife stood very erect before him; her eyes did not quail beneath his angry glances; nor was there any sign of weakness in her low, even tones. "Let me warn you now—and regard the warning as for all time—against any attempt to coerce me into obedience to your arbitrary exactions. Your conduct to-night was simply disgraceful—humiliating to yourself, and mortifying and unjust to your wife. Let us have no more of this. There is a high wall between us, Mr. Dexter—high as heaven and deep as—." Her feelings were getting the rein and she checked herself. "Your own hands have built it," she resumed in a colder tone, "but your own hands, I fear, have not the strength to pull it down. Love you I never did, and you knew it from the beginning; love you I never can. That is a simple impossibility. But true to you as steel to the magnet in all the externals of my life, I have been and shall continue to be, even to the end of this unhappy union. As a virtuous woman, I could be nothing less. The outrage I have suffered this day from your hands, is irreparable. I never imagined it would come to this. I did not dream that it was in you to charge upon your wife the meditation of a crime the deepest it is possible for a woman to commit. That you were weakly jealous, I saw; and I came here in cheerful acquiescence to your whim, in order to help you to get right. But this very act of cheerful acquiescence was made the ground of a charge that shocked my being to the inmost and changed me towards you irrevocably."