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After the Storm

by T. S. Arthur · English · Gutenberg #4590 · 384,252 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: After the Storm

Author: T. S. Arthur


        
Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4590]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4590

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER THE STORM ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.









AFTER THE STORM.


BY

T. S. ARTHUR.



PHILADELPHIA:

1868




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I. THE WAR OF THE ELEMENTS.
  CHAPTER II. THE LOVERS.
  CHAPTER III. THE CLOUD AND THE SIGN.
  CHAPTER IV. UNDER THE CLOUD.
  CHAPTER V. THE BURSTING OF THE STORM.
  CHAPTER VI. AFTER THE STORM.
  CHAPTER VII. THE LETTER.
  CHAPTER VIII. THE FLIGHT AND THE RETURN.
  CHAPTER IX. THE RECONCILIATION.
  CHAPTER X. AFTER THE STORM.
  CHAPTER XI. A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
  CHAPTER XII. IN BONDS.
  CHAPTER XIII. THE REFORMERS.
  CHAPTER XIV. A STARTLING EXPERIENCE.
  CHAPTER XV. CAPTIVATED AGAIN.
  CHAPTER XVI. WEARY OF CONSTRAINT.
  CHAPTER XVII. GONE FOR EVER!
  CHAPTER XVIII. YOUNG, BUT WISE.
  CHAPTER XIX. THE SHIPWRECKED LIFE.
  CHAPTER XX. THE PALSIED HEART.
  CHAPTER XXI. THE IRREVOCABLE DECREE.
  CHAPTER XXII. STRUCK DOWN.
  CHAPTER XXIII. THE HAUNTED VISION.
  CHAPTER XXIV. THE MINISTERING ANGEL.
  CHAPTER XXV. BORN FOR EACH OTHER.
  CHAPTER XXVI. LOVE NEVER DIES.
  CHAPTER XXVII. EFFECTS OF THE STORM.
  CHAPTER XXVIII. AFTER THE STORM.






AFTER THE STORM.




CHAPTER I.

THE WAR OF THE ELEMENTS.


_NO_ June day ever opened with a fairer promise. Not a single cloud
flecked the sky, and the sun coursed onward through the azure sea
until past meridian, without throwing to the earth a single shadow.
Then, low in the west, appeared something obscure and hazy, blending
the hill-tops with the horizon; an hour later, and three or four
small fleecy islands were seen, clearly outlined in the airy ocean,
and slowly ascending--avant-couriers of a coming storm. Following
these were mountain peaks, snow-capped and craggy, with desolate
valleys between. Then, over all this arctic panorama, fell a sudden
shadow. The white tops of the cloudy hills lost their clear,
gleaming outlines and their slumbrous stillness. The atmosphere was
in motion, and a white scud began to drive across the heavy, dark
masses of clouds that lay far back against the sky in mountain-like
repose.

How grandly now began the onward march of the tempest, which had
already invaded the sun's domain and shrouded his face in the smoke
of approaching battle. Dark and heavy it lay along more than half
the visible horizon, while its crown invaded the zenith.

As yet, all was silence and portentous gloom. Nature seemed to pause
and hold her breath in dread anticipation. Then came a muffled,
jarring sound, as of far distant artillery, which died away into an
oppressive stillness. Suddenly from zenith to horizon the cloud was
cut by a fiery stroke, an instant visible. Following this, a heavy
thunder-peal shook the solid earth, and rattled in booming echoes
along the hillsides and amid the cloudy caverns above.

At last the storm came down on the wind's strong pinions, swooping
fiercely to the earth, like an eagle to its prey. For one wild hour
it raged as if the angel of destruction were abroad.

At the window of a house standing picturesquely among the Hudson
Highlands, and looking down upon the river, stood a maiden and her
lover, gazing upon this wild war among the elements. Fear had
pressed her closely to his side, and he had drawn an arm around her
in assurance of safety.

Suddenly the maiden clasped her hands over her face, cried out and
shuddered. The lightning had shivered a tree upon which her gaze was
fixed, rending it as she could have rent a willow wand.

"God is in the storm," said the lover, bending to her ear. He spoke
reverently and in a voice that had in it no tremor of fear.

The maiden withdrew her hands from before her shut eyes, and looking
up into his face, answered in a voice which she strove to make
steady:

"Thank you, Hartley, for the words. Yes, God is present in the
storm, as in the sunshine."

"Look!" exclaimed the young man, suddenly, pointing to the river. A
boat had just come in sight. It contained a man and a woman. The
former was striving with a pair of oars to keep the boat right in
the eye of the wind; but while the maiden and her lover still gazed
at them, a wild gust swept down upon the water and drove their frail
bark under. There was no hope in their case; the floods had
swallowed them, and would not give up their living prey.

A moment afterward, and an elm, whose great arms had for nearly a
century spread themselves out in the sunshine tranquilly or battled
with the storms, fell crashing against the house, shaking it to the
very foundations.

The maiden drew back from the window, overcome with terror. These
shocks were too much for her nerves. But her lover restrained her,
saying, with a covert chiding in his voice,

"Stay, Irene! There is a wild delight in all this, and are you not
brave enough to share it with me?"

But she struggled to release herself from his arm, replying with a
shade of impatience--

"Let me go, Hartley! Let me go!"

The flexed arm was instantly relaxed, and the maiden was free. She
went back, hastily, from the window, and, sitting down on a sofa,
buried her face in her hands. The young man did not follow her, but
remained standing by the window, gazing out upon Nature in her
strong convulsion. It may, however, be doubted whether his mind took
note of the wild images that were pictured in his eyes. A cloud was
in the horizon of his mind, dimming its heavenly azure. And the
maiden's sky was shadowed also.

For two or three minutes the young man stood by the window, looking
out at the writhing trees and the rain pouring down an avalanche of
water, and then, with a movement that indicated a struggle and a
conquest, turned and walked toward the sofa on which the maiden
still sat with her face hidden from view. Sitting down beside her,
he took her hand. It lay passive in his. He pressed it gently; but
she gave back no returning pressure. There came a sharp, quick gleam
of lightning, followed by a crash that jarred the house. But Irene
did not start--we may question whether she even saw the one or heard
the other, except as something remote.

"Irene!"

She did not stir.

The young man leaned closer, and said, in a tender voice--

"Irene--darling--"

Her hand moved in his--just moved--but did not return the pressure
of his own.

"Irene." And now his arm stole around her. She yielded, and,
turning, laid her head upon his shoulder.

There had been a little storm in the maiden's heart, consequent upon
the slight restraint ventured on by her lover when she drew back
from the window; and it was only now subsiding.

"I did not mean to offend you," said the young man, penitently.

"Who said that I was offended?" She looked up, with a smile that
only half obliterated the shadow. "I was frightened, Hartley. It is
a fearful storm!" And she glanced toward the window.

The lover accepted this affirmation, though he knew better in his
heart. He knew that his slight attempt at constraint had chafed her
naturally impatient spirit, and that it had taken her some time to
regain her lost self-control.

Without, the wild rush of winds was subsiding, the lightning gleamed
out less frequently, and the thunder rolled at a farther distance.
Then came that deep stillness of nature which follows in the wake of
the tempest, and in its hush the lovers stood again at the window,
looking out upon the wrecks that were strewn in its path. They were
silent, for on both hearts was a shadow, which had not rested there
when they first stood by the window, although the sky was then more
deeply veiled. So slight was the cause on which these shadows
depended that memory scarcely retained its impression. He was
tender, and she was yielding; and each tried to atone by loving acts
for a moment of willfulness.

The sun went down while yet the skirts of the storm were spread over
the western sky, and without a single glance at the ruins which
lightning, wind and rain had scattered over the earth's fair
surface. But he arose gloriously in the coming morning, and went
upward in his strength, consuming the vapors at a breath, and
drinking up every bright dewdrop that welcomed him with a quiver of
joy. The branches shook themselves in the gentle breezes his
presence had called forth to dally amid their foliage and sport with
the flowers; and every green thing put on a fresher beauty in
delight at his return; while from the bosom of the trees--from
hedgerow and from meadow--went up the melody of birds.

In the brightness of this morning, the lovers went out to look at
the storm-wrecks that lay scattered around. Here a tree had been
twisted off where the tough wood measured by feet instead of inches;
there stood the white and shivered trunk of another sylvan lord,
blasted in an instant by a lightning stroke; and there lay, prone
upon the ground, giant limbs, which, but the day before, spread
themselves abroad in proud defiance of the storm. Vines were torn
from their fastenings; flower-beds destroyed; choice shrubbery,
tended with care for years, shorn of its beauty. Even the solid
earth had been invaded by floods of water, which ploughed deep
furrows along its surface. And, saddest of all, two human lives had
gone out while the mad tempest raged in uncontrollable fury.

As the lover and maiden stood looking at the signs of violence so
thickly scattered around, the former said, in a cheerful tone--

"For all his wild, desolating power, the tempest is vassal to the
sun and dew. He may spread his sad trophies around in brief, blind
rage; but they soon obliterate all traces of his path, and make
beautiful what he has scarred with wounds or disfigured by the tramp
of his iron heel."

"Not so, my children," said the calm voice of the maiden's father,
to whose ears the remark had come. "Not so, my children. The sun and
dew never fully restore what the storm has broken and trampled upon.
They may hide disfiguring marks, and cover with new forms of life
and beauty the ruins which time can never restore. This is
something, and we may take the blessing thankfully, and try to
forget what is lost, or so changed as to be no longer desirable.
Look at this fallen and shattered elm, my children. Is there any
hope for that in the dew, the rain and sunshine? Can these build it
up again, and spread out its arms as of old, bringing back to me, as
it has done daily, the image of my early years? No, my children.
After every storm are ruins which can never be repaired. Is it not
so with that lightning-stricken oak? And what art can restore to its
exquisite loveliness this statue of Hope, thrown down by the
ruthless hand of the unsparing tempest? Moreover, is there human
vitality in the sunshine and fructifying dew? Can they put life into
the dead?

"No--no--my children. And take the lesson to heart. Outward tempests
but typify and represent the fiercer tempests that too often
desolate the human soul. In either case something is lost that can
never be restored. Beware, then, of storms, for wreck and ruin
follow as surely as the passions rage."




CHAPTER II.

THE LOVERS.


_IRENE DELANCY_ was a girl of quick, strong feelings, and an
undisciplined will. Her mother died before she reached her tenth
year. From that time she was either at home under the care of
domestics, or within the scarcely more favorable surroundings of a
boarding-school. She grew up beautiful and accomplished, but
capricious and with a natural impatience of control, that unwise
reactions on the part of those who attempted to govern her in no
degree tempered.

Hartley Emerson, as a boy, was self-willed and passionate, but
possessed many fine qualities. A weak mother yielded to his resolute
struggles to have his own way, and so he acquired, at an early age,
control over his own movements. He went to college, studied hard,
because he was ambitious, and graduated with honor. Law he chose as
a profession; and, in order to secure the highest advantages,
entered the office of a distinguished attorney in the city of New
York, and gave to its study the best efforts of a clear, acute and
logical mind. Self-reliant, proud, and in the habit of reaching his
ends by the nearest ways, he took his place at the bar with a
promise of success rarely exceeded. From his widowed mother, who
died before he reached his majority, Hartley Emerson inherited a
moderate fortune with which to begin the world. Few young men
started forward on their life-journey with so small a number of
vices, or with so spotless a moral character. The fine intellectual
cast of his mind, and his devotion to study, lifted him above the
baser allurements of sense and kept his garments pure.

Such were Irene Delancy and Hartley Emerson--lovers and betrothed at
the time we present them to our readers. They met, two years before,
at Saratoga, and drew together by a mutual attraction. She was the
first to whom his heart had bowed in homage; and until she looked
upon him her pulse had never beat quicker at sight of a manly form.

Mr. Edmund Delancy, a gentleman of some wealth and advanced in
years, saw no reason to interpose objections. The family of Emerson
occupied a social position equal with his own; and the young man's
character and habits were blameless. So far, the course of love ran
smooth; and only three months intervened until the wedding-day.

The closer relation into which the minds of the lovers came after
their betrothal and the removal of a degree of deference and
self-constraint, gave opportunity for the real character of each to
show itself. Irene could not always repress her willfulness and
impatience of another's control; nor her lover hold a firm hand on
quick-springing anger when anything checked his purpose. Pride and
adhesiveness of character, under such conditions of mind, were
dangerous foes to peace; and both were proud and tenacious.

The little break in the harmonious flow of their lives, noticed as
occurring while the tempest raged, was one of many such incidents;
and it was in consequence of Mr. Delancy's observation of these
unpromising features in their intercourse that he spoke with so much
earnestness about the irreparable ruin that followed in the wake of
storms.

At least once a week Emerson left the city, and his books and cases,
to spend a day with Irene in her tasteful home; and sometimes he
lingered there for two or three days at a time. It happened, almost
invariably, that some harsh notes jarred in the music of their lives
during these pleasant seasons, and left on both their hearts a
feeling of oppression, or, worse, a brooding sense of injustice.
Then there grew up between them an affected opposition and
indifference, and a kind of half-sportive, half-earnest wrangling
about trifles, which too often grew serious.

Mr. Delancy saw this with a feeling of regret, and often interposed
to restore some broken links in the chain of harmony.

"You must be more conciliating, Irene," he would often say to his
daughter. "Hartley is earnest and impulsive, and you should yield to
him gracefully, even when you do not always see and feel as he does.
This constant opposition and standing on your dignity about trifles
is fretting both of you, and bodes evil in the future."

"Would you have me assent if he said black was white?" she answered
to her father's remonstrance one day, balancing her little head
firmly and setting her lips together in a resolute way.

"It might be wiser to say nothing than to utter dissent, if, in so
doing, both were made unhappy," returned her father.

"And so let him think me a passive fool?" she asked.

"No; a prudent girl, shaming his unreasonableness by her
self-control."

"I have read somewhere," said Irene, "that all men are self-willed
tyrants--the words do not apply to you, my father, and so there is
an exception to the rule." She smiled a tender smile as she looked
into the face of a parent who had ever been too indulgent. "But,
from my experience with a lover, I can well believe the sentiment
based in truth. Hartley must have me think just as he thinks, and do
what he wants me to do, or he gets ruffled. Now I don't expect, when
I am married, to sink into a mere nobody--to be my husband's echo
and shadow; and the quicker I can make Hartley comprehend this the
better will it be for both of us. A few rufflings of his feathers
now will teach him how to keep them smooth and glossy in the time to
come."

"You are in error, my child," replied Mr. Delancy, speaking very
seriously. "Between those who love a cloud should never interpose;
and I pray you, Irene, as you value your peace and that of the man
who is about to become your husband, to be wise in the very
beginning, and dissolve with a smile of affection every vapor that
threatens a coming storm. Keep the sky always bright."

"I will do everything that I can, father, to keep the sky of our
lives always bright, except give up my own freedom of thought and
independence of action. A wife should not sink her individuality in
that of her husband, any more than a husband should sink his
individuality in that of his wife. They are two equals, and should
be content to remain equals. There is no love in subordination."

Mr. Delancy sighed deeply: "Is argument of any avail here? Can words
stir conviction in her mind?" He was silent for a time, and then
said--

"Better, Irene, that you stop where you are, and go through life
alone, than venture upon marriage, in your state of feeling, with a
man like Hartley Emerson."

"Dear father, you are altogether too serious!" exclaimed the
warm-hearted girl, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him.
"Hartley and I love each other too well to be made very unhappy by
any little jar that takes place in the first reciprocal movement of
our lives. We shall soon come to understand each other, and then the
harmonies will be restored."

"The harmonies should never be lost, my child," returned Mr.
Delancy. "In that lies the danger. When the enemy gets into the
citadel, who can say that he will ever be dislodged? There is no
safety but in keeping him out."

"Still too serious, father," said Irene. "There is no danger to be
feared from any formidable enemy. All these are very little things."

"It is the little foxes that spoil the tender grapes, my daughter,"
Mr. Delancy replied; "and if the tender grapes are spoiled, what
hope is there in the time of vintage? Alas for us if in the later
years the wine of life shall fail!"

There was so sad a tone in her father's voice, and so sad an
expression on his face, that Irene was touched with a new feeling
toward him. She again put her arms around his neck and kissed him
tenderly.

"Do not fear for us," she replied. "These are only little summer
showers, that make the earth greener and the flowers more beautiful.
The sky is of a more heavenly azure when they pass away, and the sun
shines more gloriously than before."

But the father could not be satisfied, and answered--

"Beware of even summer showers, my darling. I have known fearful
ravages to follow in their path--seen many a goodly tree go down.
After every storm, though the sky may be clearer, the earth upon
which it fell has suffered some loss which is a loss for ever.
Begin, then, by conciliation and forbearance. Look past the
external, which may seem at times too exacting or imperative, and
see only the true heart pulsing beneath--the true, brave heart, that
would give to every muscle the strength of steel for your protection
if danger threatened. Can you not be satisfied with knowing that you
are loved--deeply, truly, tenderly? What more can a woman ask? Can
you not wait until this love puts on its rightly-adjusted exterior,
as it assuredly will. It is yet mingled with self-love, and its
action modified by impulse and habit. Wait--wait--wait, my daughter.
Bear and forbear for a time, as you value peace on earth and
happiness in heaven."

"I will try, father, for your sake, to guard myself," she answered.

"No, no, Irene. Not for my sake, but for the sake of right,"
returned Mr. Delancy.

They were sitting in the vine-covered portico that looked down, over
a sloping lawn toward the river.

"There is Hartley now!" exclaimed Irene, as the form of her lover
came suddenly into view, moving forward along the road that
approached from the landing, and she sprung forward and went rapidly
down to meet him. There an ardent kiss, a twining of arms, warmly
spoken words and earnest gestures. Mr. Delancy looked at them as
they stood fondly together, and sighed. He could not help it, for he
knew there was trouble before them. After standing and talking for a
short time, they began moving toward the house, but paused at every
few paces--sometimes to admire a picturesque view--sometimes to
listen one to the other and respond to pleasant sentiments--and
sometimes in fond dispute. This was Mr. Delancy's reading of their
actions and gestures, as he sat looking at and observing them
closely.

A little way from the path by which they were advancing toward the
house was a rustic arbor, so placed as to command a fine sweep of
river from one line of view and West Point from another. Irene
paused and made a motion of her hand toward this arbor, as if she
wished to go there; but Hartley looked to the house and plainly
signified a wish to go there first. At this Irene pulled him gently
toward the arbor; he resisted, and she drew upon his arm more
resolutely, when, planting his feet firmly, he stood like a rock.
Still she urged and still he declined going in that direction. It
was play at first, but Mr. Delancy saw that it was growing to be
earnest. A few moments longer, and he saw Irene separate from
Hartley and move toward the arbor; at the same time the young man
came forward in the direction of the house. Mr. Delancy, as he
stepped from the portico to meet him, noticed that his color was
heightened and his eyes unusually bright.

"What's the matter with that self-willed girl of mine?" he asked, as
he took the hand of Emerson, affecting a lightness of tone that did
not correspond with his real feelings.

"Oh, nothing serious," the young man replied. "She's only in a
little pet because I wouldn't go with her to the arbor before I paid
my respects to you."

"She's a spoiled little puss," said the father, in a fond yet
serious way, "and you'll have to humor her a little at first,
Hartley. She never had the wise discipline of a mother, and so has
grown up unused to that salutary control which is so necessary for
young persons. But she has a warm, true heart and pure principles;
and these are the foundation-stones on which to build the temple of
happiness."

"Don't fear but that it will be all right between us. I love her too
well to let any flitting humors affect me."

He stepped upon the portico as he spoke and sat down. Irene had
before this reached the arbor and taken a seat there. Mr. Delancy
could do no less than resume the chair from which he had arisen on
the young man's approach. In looking into Hartley's face he noticed
a resolute expression about his mouth. For nearly ten minutes they
sat and talked, Irene remaining alone in the arbor. Mr. Delancy then
said, in a pleasant off-handed way,

"Come, Hartley, you have punished her long enough. I don't like to
see you even play at disagreement."

He did not seem to notice the remark, but started a subject of
conversation that it was almost impossible to dismiss for the next
ten minutes. Then he stepped down from the portico, and was moving
leisurely toward the arbor when he perceived that Irene had already
left it and was returning by another path. So he came back and
seated himself again, to await her approach. But, instead of joining
him, she passed round the house and entered on the opposite side.
For several minutes he sat, expecting every instant to see her come
out on the portico, but she did not make her appearance.

It was early in the afternoon. Hartley, affecting not to notice the
absence of Irene, kept up an animated conversation with Mr. Delancy.
A whole hour went by, and still the young lady was absent. Suddenly
starting, up, at the end of this time, Hartley exclaimed--

"As I live, there comes the boat! and I must be in New York
to-night."

"Stay," said Mr. Delancy, "until I call Irene."

"I can't linger for a moment, sir. It will take quick walking to
reach the landing by the time the boat is there." The young man
spoke hurriedly, shook hands with Mr. Delancy, and then sprung away,
moving at a rapid pace.

"What's the matter, father? Where is Hartley going?" exclaimed
Irene, coming out into the portico and grasping her father's arm.
Her face was pale and her lips trembled.

"He is going to New York," relied Mr. Delancy.

"To New York!" She looked almost frightened.

"Yes. The boat is coming, and he says that he must be in the city
to-night."

Irene sat down, looking pale and troubled.

"Why have you remained away from Hartley ever since his arrival?"
asked Mr. Delancy, fixing his eyes upon Irene and evincing some
displeasure.

Irene did not answer, but her father saw the color coming back to
her face.

"I think, from his manner, that he was hurt by your singular
treatment. What possessed you to do so?"

"Because I was not pleased with him," said Irene. Her voice was now
steady.

"Why not?"

"I wished him to go to the arbor."

"He was your guest, and, in simple courtesy, if there was no other
motive, you should have let his wishes govern your movements," Mr.
Delancy replied.

"He is always opposing me!" said Irene, giving way to a flood of
tears and weeping for a time bitterly.

"It is not at all unlikely, my daughter," replied Mr. Delancy, after
the tears began to flow less freely, "that Hartley is now saying the
same thing of you, and treasuring up bitter things in his heart. I
have no idea that any business calls him to New York to-night."

"Nor I. He takes this means to punish me," said Irene.

"Don't take that for granted. Your conduct has blinded him, and he
is acting now from blind impulse. Before he is half-way to New York
he will regret this hasty step as sincerely as I trust you are
already regretting its occasion."

Irene did not reply.

"I did not think," he resumed, "that my late earnest remonstrance
would have so soon received an illustration like this. But it may be
as well. Trifles light as air have many times proved the beginning
of life-longs separations between friends and lovers who possessed
all the substantial qualities for a life-long and happy
companionship. Oh, my daughter, beware! beware of these little
beginnings of discord. How easy would it have been for you to have
yielded to Hartley's wishes!--how hard will it to endure the pain
that must now be suffered! And remember that you do not suffer
alone; your conduct has made him an equal sufferer. He came up all
the way from the city full of sweet anticipations. It was for your
sake that he came; and love pictured you as embodying all
attractions. But how has he found you? Ah, my daughter, your caprice
has wounded the heart that turned to you for love. He came in joy,
but goes back in sorrow."

Irene went up to her chamber, feeling sadder than she had ever felt
in her life; yet, mingling, with her sadness and self-reproaches,
were complaining thoughts of her lover. For a little half-playful
pettishness was she to be visited with a punishment like this? If he
had really loved her--so she queried--would he have flung himself
away after this hasty fashion? Pride came to her aid in the conflict
of feeling, and gave her self-control and endurance. At tea-time she
met her father, and surprised him with her calm, almost cheerful,
aspect. But his glance was too keen not to penetrate the disguise.
After tea, she sat reading--or at least affecting to read--in the
portico, until the evening shadows came down, and then she retired
to her chamber.

Not many hours of sleep brought forgetfulness of suffering through
the night that followed. Sometimes the unhappy girl heaped mountains
of reproaches upon her own head; and sometimes pride and
indignation, gaining rule in her heart, would whisper
self-justification, and throw the weight of responsibility upon her
lover.

Her pale face and troubled eyes revealed too plainly, on the next
morning, the conflict through which she had passed.

"Write him a letter of apology or explanation," said Mr. Delancy.

But Irene was not in a state of mind for this. Pride came whispering
too many humiliating objections in her ear. Morning passed, and in
the early hours of the afternoon, when the New York boat usually
came up the river, she was out on the portico watching for its
appearance. Hope whispered that, repenting of his hasty return on
the day before, her lover was now hurrying back to meet her. At last
the white hull of the boat came gliding into view, and in less than
half an hour it was at the landing. Then it moved on its course
again. Almost to a second of time had Irene learned to calculate the
minutes it required for Hartley to make the distance between the
landing and the nearest point in the road where his form could meet
her view. She held her breath in eager expectation as that moment of
time approached. It came--it passed; the white spot in the road,
where his dark form first revealed itself, was touched by no
obscuring shadow. For more than ten minutes Irene sat motionless,
gazing still toward that point; then, sighing deeply, she arose and
went up to her room, from which she did not come down until summoned
to join her father at tea.

The next day passed as this had done, and so did the next. Hartley
neither came nor sent a message of any kind. The maiden's heart
began to fail. Grief and fear took the place of accusation and
self-reproach. What if he had left her for ever! The thought made
her heart shiver as if an icy wind had passed over it. Two or three
times she took up her pen to write him a few words and entreat him
to come back to her again. But she could form no sentences against
which pride did not come with strong objection; and so she suffered
on, and made no sign.

A whole week at last intervened. Then the enduring heart began to
grow stronger to bear, and, in self-protection, to put on sterner
moods. Hers was not a spirit to yield weakly in any struggle. She
was formed for endurance, pride and self-reliance giving her
strength above common natures. But this did not really lessen her
suffering, for she was not only capable of deep affection, but
really loved Hartley almost as her own life; and the thought of
losing him, whenever it grew distinct, filled her with terrible
anguish.

With pain her father saw the color leave her cheeks, her eyes grow
fixed and dreamy, and her lips shrink from their full outline.

"Write to Hartley," he said to her one day, after a week had passed.

"Never!" was her quick, firm, almost sharply uttered response; "I
would die first!"

"But, my daughter--"

"Father," she interrupted him, two bright spots suddenly burning on
her cheeks, "don't, I pray you, urge me on this point. I have
courage enough to break, but I will not bend. I gave him no offence.
What right has he to assume that I was not engaged in domestic
duties while he sat talking with you? He said that he had an
engagement in New York. Very well; there was a sufficient reason for
his sudden departure; and I accept the reason. But why does he
remain away? If simply because I preferred a seat in the arbor to
one in the portico, why, the whole thing is so unmanly, that I can
have no patience with it. Write to him, and humor a whim like this!
No, no--Irene Delancy is not made of the right stuff. He went from
me, and he must return again. I cannot go to him. Maiden modesty and
pride forbid. And so I shall remain silent and passive, if my heart
breaks."

It was in the afternoon, and they were sitting in the portico,
where, at this hour, Irene might have been found every day for the
past week. The boat from New York came in sight as she closed the
last sentence. She saw it--for her eyes were on the look-out--the
moment it turned the distant point of land that hid the river
beyond. Mr. Delancy also observed the boat. Its appearance was an
incident of sufficient importance, taking things as they were, to
check the conversation, which was far from being satisfactory on
either side.

The figure of Irene was half buried in a deep cushioned chair, which
had been wheeled out upon the portico, and now her small, slender
form seemed to shrink farther back among the cushions, and she sat
as motionless as one asleep. Steadily onward came the boat, throwing
backward her dusky trail and lashing with her great revolving wheels
the quiet waters into foamy turbulence--onward, until the dark crowd
of human forms could be seen upon her decks; then, turning sharply,
she was lost to view behind a bank of forest trees. Ten minutes
more, and the shriek of escaping steam was heard as she stopped her
ponderous machinery at the landing.

From that time Irene almost held her breath, as so she counted the
moments that must elapse before Hartley could reach the point of
view in the road that led up from the river, should he have been a
passenger in the steamboat. The number was fully told, but it was
to-day as yesterday. There was no sign of his coming. And so the
eyelids, weary with vain expectation, drooped heavily over the
dimming eyes. But she had not stirred, nor shown a sign of feeling.
A little while she sat with her long lashes shading her pale cheeks;
then she slowly raised them and looked out toward the river again.
What a quick start she gave! Did her eyes deceive her? No, it was
Hartley, just in the spot she had looked to see him only a minute or
two before. But how slowly he moved, and with what a weary step!
and, even at this long distance, his face looked white against the
wavy masses of his dark-brown hair.

Irene started up with an exclamation, stood as if in doubt for a
moment, then, springing from the portico, she went flying to meet
him, as swiftly as if moving on winged feet. All the forces of her
ardent, impulsive nature were bearing her forward. There was no
remembrance of coldness or imagined wrong--pride did not even
struggle to lift its head--love conquered everything. The young man
stood still, from weariness or surprise, ere she reached him. As she
drew near, Irene saw that his face was not only pale, but thin and
wasted.

"Oh, Hartley! dear Hartley!" came almost wildly from her lips, as
she flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him over and over
again, on lips, cheeks and brow, with an ardor and tenderness that
no maiden delicacy could restrain. "Have you been sick, or hurt? Why
are you so pale, darling?"

"I have been ill for a week--ever since I was last here," the young
man replied, speaking in a slow, tremulous voice.

"And I knew it not!" Tears were glittering in her eyes and pressing
out in great pearly beads from between the fringing lashes. "Why did
you not send for me, Hartley?"

And she laid her small hands upon each side of his face, as you have
seen a mother press the cheeks of her child, and looked up tenderly
into his love-beaming eyes.

"But come, dear," she added, removing her hands from his face and
drawing her arm within his--not to lean on, but to offer support.
"My father, who has, with me, suffered great anxiety on your
account, is waiting your arrival at the house."

Then, with slow steps, they moved along the upward sloping way,
crowding the moments with loving words.

And so the storm passed, and the sun came out again in the firmament
of their souls. But looked he down on no tempest-marks? Had not the
ruthless tread of passion marred the earth's fair surface? Were no
goodly trees uptorn, or clinging vines wrenched from their support?
Alas! was there ever a storm that did not leave some ruined hope
behind? ever a storm that did not strew the sea with wrecks or mar
the earth's fair beauty?

As when the pain of a crushed limb ceases there comes to the
sufferer a sense of delicious ease, so, after the storm had passed,
the lovers sat in the warm sunshine and dreamed of unclouded
happiness in the future. But in the week that Hartley spent with his
betrothed were revealed to their eyes, many times, desolate places
where flowers had been; and their hearts grew sad as they turned
their eyes away, and sighed for hopes departed, faith shaken, and
untroubled confidence in each other for the future before them, for
ever gone.




CHAPTER III.

THE CLOUD AND THE SIGN.


_IN_ alternate storm and sunshine their lives passed on, until the
appointed day arrived that was to see them bound, not by the
graceful true-lovers' knot, which either might untie, but by a chain
light as downy fetters if borne in mutual love, and galling as
ponderous iron links, if heart answered not heart and the chafing
spirit struggled to get free.

Hartley Emerson loved truly the beautiful, talented and
affectionate, but badly-disciplined, quick-tempered, self-willed
girl he had chosen for a wife; and Irene Delancy would have gone to
prison and to death for the sake of the man to whom she had yielded
up the rich treasures of her young heart. In both cases the great
drawback to happiness was the absence of self-discipline,
self-denial and self-conquest. They could overcome difficulties,
brave danger, set the world at defiance, if need be, for each other,
and not a coward nerve give way; but when pride and passion came
between them, each was a child in weakness and blind self-will.
Unfortunately, persistence of character was strong in both. They
were of such stuff as martyrs were made of in the fiery times of
power and persecution.

A brighter, purer morning than that on which their marriage vows
were said the year had not given to the smiling earth. Clear and
softly blue as the eye of childhood bent the summer sky above them.
There was not a cloud in all the tranquil heavens to give suggestion
of dreary days to come or to wave a sign of warning. The blithe
birds sung their matins amid the branches that hung their leafy
drapery around and above Irene's windows, in seeming echoes to the
songs love was singing in her heart. Nature put on the loveliest
attire in all her ample wardrobe, and decked herself with coronals
and wreaths of flowers that loaded the air with sweetness.

"May your lives flow together like two pure streams that meet in the
same valley, and as bright a sky bend always over you as gives its
serene promise for to-day."

Thus spoke the minister as the ceremonials closed that wrought the
external bond of union between them. His words were uttered with
feeling and solemnity; for marriage, in his eyes, was no light
thing. He had seen too many sad hearts struggling in chains that
only death could break, ever to regard marriage with other than
sober thoughts that went questioning away into the future.

The "amen" of Mr. Delancy was not audibly spoken, but it was
deep-voiced in his heart.

There was to be a wedding-tour of a few weeks, and then the young
couple were to take possession of a new home in the city, Which Mr.
Emerson had prepared for his bride. The earliest boat that came up
from New York was to bears the party to Albany, Saratoga being the
first point of their destination.

After the closing of the marriage ceremony some two or three hours
passed before the time of departure came. The warm congratulations
were followed by a gay, festive scene, in which glad young hearts
had a merry-making time. How beautiful the bride looked! and how
proudly the gaze of her newly-installed husband turned ever and ever
toward her, move which way she would among her maidens, as if she
were a magnet to his eyes. He was standing in the portico that
looked out upon the distant river, about an hour after the wedding,
talking with one of the bridesmaids, when the latter, pointing to
the sky, said, laughing--

"There comes your fate."

Emerson's eyes followed the direction of her finger.

"You speak in riddles," he replied, looking back into the maiden's
face. "What do you see?"

"A little white blemish on the deepening azure," was answered.
"There it lies, just over that stately horse-chestnut, whose
branches arch themselves into the outline of a great cathedral
window."

"A scarcely perceptible cloud?"

"Yes, no bigger than a hand; and just below it is another."

"I see; and yet you still propound a riddle. What has that cloud to
do with my fate?"

"You know the old superstition connected with wedding-days?"

"What?"

"That as the aspect of the day is, so will the wedded life be."

"Ours, then, is full of promise. There has been no fairer day than
this," said the young man.

"Yet many a day that opened as bright and cloudless has sobbed
itself away in tears."

"True; and it may be so again. But I am no believer in signs."

"Nor I," said the young lady, again laughing.

The bride came up at this moment and, hearing the remark of her
young husband, said, as she drew her arm within his--

"What about signs, Hartley?"

"Miss Carman has just reminded me of the superstition about
wedding-days, as typical of life."

"Oh yes, I remember," said Irene, smiling. "If the day opens clear,
then becomes cloudy, and goes out in storm, there will be happiness
in the beginning, but sorrow at the close; but if clouds and rain
herald its awakening, then pass over and leave the sky blue and
sunny, there will be trouble at first, but smiling peace as life
progresses and declines. Our sky is bright as heart could wish." And
the bride looked up into the deep blue ether.

Miss Carman laid one hand upon her arm and with the other pointed
lower down, almost upon the horizon's edge, saying, in a tone of
mock solemnity--

"As I said to Mr. Emerson, so I now say to you--There comes our
fate."

"You don't call that the herald of an approaching storm?"

"Weatherwise people say," answered the maiden, "that a sky without a
cloud is soon followed by stormy weather. Since morning until now
there has not a cloud been seen."'

"Weatherwise people and almanac-makers speak very oracularly, but
the day of auguries and signs is over," replied Irene.

"Philosophy," said Mr. Emerson, "is beginning to find reasons in the
nature of things for results that once seemed only accidental, yet
followed with remarkable certainty the same phenomena. It discovers
a relation of cause and effect where ignorance only recognizes some
power working in the dark."

"So you pass me over to the side of ignorance!" Irene spoke in a
tone that Hartley's ear recognized too well. His remark had touched
her pride.

"Not by any means," he answered quickly, eager to do away the
impression. "Not by any means," he repeated. "The day of mere
auguries, omens and signs is over. Whatever natural phenomena appear
are dependent on natural causes, and men of science are beginning to
study the so-called superstitions of farmers and seamen, to find
out, if possible, the philosophical elucidation. Already a number of
curious results have followed investigation in this field."

Irene leaned on his arm still, but she did not respond. A little
cloud had come up and lay just upon the verge of her soul's horizon.
Her husband knew that it was there; and this knowledge caused a
cloud to dim also the clear azure of his mind. There was a singular
correspondence between their mental sky and the fair cerulean
without.

Fearing to pursue the theme on which they were conversing, lest some
unwitting words might shadow still further the mind of Irene,
Emerson changed the subject, and was, to all appearance, successful
in dispelling the little cloud.

The hour came, at length, when the bridal party must leave. After a
tender, tearful partings with her father, Irene turned her steps
away from the home of her childhood into a new path, that would lead
her out into the world, where so many thousands upon thousands, who
saw only a way of velvet softness before them, have cut their tended
feet upon flinty rocks, even to the verve end of their tearful
journey. Tightly and long did Mr. Delancy hold his child to his
heart, and when his last kiss was given and his fervent "God give
you a happy life, my daughter!" said, he gazed after her departing
form with eyes front which manly firmness could not hold back the
tears.

No one knew better than Mr. Delancy the perils that lay before his
daughter. That storms would darken her sky and desolate her heart,
he had too good reason to fear. His hope for her lay beyond the
summer-time of life, when, chastened by suffering and subdued by
experience, a tranquil autumn would crown her soul with blessings
that might have been earlier enjoyed. He was not superstitious, and
yet it was with a feeling of concern that he saw the white and
golden clouds gathering like enchanted land along the horizon, and
piling themselves up, one above another, as if in sport, building
castles and towers that soon dissolved, changing away into fantastic
forms, in which the eye could see no meaning; and when, at last, his
ear caught a far-distant sound that jarred the air, a sudden pain
shot through his heart.

"On any other day but this!" he sighed to himself, turning from the
window at which he was standing and walking restlessly the floor for
several minutes, lost in a sad, dreamy reverie.

Like something instinct with life the stately steamer, quivering
with every stroke of her iron heart, swept along the gleaming river
on her upward passage, bearing to their destination her freight of
human souls. Among theme was our bridal party, which, as the day was
so clear and beautiful, was gathered upon the upper deck. As Irene's
eyes turned from the closing vision of her father's beautiful home,
where the first cycle of her life had recorded its golden hours, she
said, with a sigh, speaking to one of her companions--

"Farewell, Ivy Cliff! I shall return to you again, but not the same
being I was when I left your pleasant scenes this morning."

"A happier being I trust," replied Miss Carman, one of her
bridemaids.

Rose Carman was a young friend, residing in the neighborhood of her
father, to whom Irene was tenderly attached.

"Something here says no." And Irene, bending toward Miss Carman,
pressed one of her hands against her bosom.

"The weakness of an hour like this," answered her friend with an
assuring smile. "It will pass away like the morning cloud and the
early dew."

Mr. Emerson noticed the shade upon the face of his bride, and
drawing near to her, said, tenderly--

"I can forgive you a sigh for the past, Irene. Ivy Cliff is a lovely
spot, and your home has been all that a maiden's heart could desire.
It would be strange, indeed, if the chords that have so long bound
you there did not pull at your heart in parting."

Irene did not answer, but let her eyes turn backward with a pensive
almost longing glance toward the spot where lay hidden among the
distant trees the home of her early years. A deep shadow had
suddenly fallen upon her spirits. Whence it came she knew not and
asked not; but with the shadow was a dim foreboding of evil.

There was tact and delicacy enough in the companions of Irene to
lead them to withdraw observation and to withhold further remarks
until she could recover the self-possession she had lost. This came
back in a little while, when, with an effort, she put on the light,
easy manner so natural to her.

"Looking at the signs?" said one of the party, half an hour
afterward, as she saw the eyes of Irene ranging along the sky, where
clouds were now seen towering up in steep masses, like distant
mountains.

"If I were a believer of signs," replied Irene, placing her arm
within that of the maiden who had addressed her, and drawing her
partly aside, "I might feel sober at this portent. But I am not.
Still, sign or no sign, I trust we are not going to have a storm. It
would greatly mar our pleasure."

But long ere the boat reached Albany, rain began to fall,
accompanied by lightning and thunder; and soon the clouds were
dissolving in a mimic deluge. Hour after hour, the wind and rain and
lightning held fierce revelry, and not until near the completion of
the voyage did the clouds hold back their watery treasures, and the
sunbeams force themselves through the storm's dark barriers.

When the stars came out that evening, studding the heavens with
light, there was no obscuring spot on all the o'erarching sky.




CHAPTER IV.

UNDER THE CLOUD.


_THE_ wedding party was to spend a week at Saratoga, and it was now
the third day since its arrival. The time had passed pleasantly, or
wearily, according to the state of mind or social habits and
resources of the individual. The bride, it was remarked by some of
the party, seemed dull; and Rose Carman, who knew her friend better,
perhaps, than any other individual in the company, and kept her
under close observation, was concerned to notice an occasional
curtness of manner toward her husband, that was evidently not
relished. Something had already transpired to jar the chords so
lately attuned to harmony.

After dinner a ride was proposed by one of the company. Emerson
responded favorably, but Irene was indifferent. He urged her, and
she gave an evidently reluctant consent. While the gentlemen went to
make arrangement for carriages, the ladies retired to their rooms.
Miss Carman accompanied the bride. She had noticed her manner, and
felt slightly troubled at her state of mind, knowing, as she did,
her impulsive character and blind self-will when excited by
opposition.

"I don't want to ride to-day!" exclaimed Irene, throwing herself
into a chair as soon as she had entered her room; "and Hartley knows
that I do not."

Her cheeks burned and her eyes sparkled.

"If it will give him pleasure to ride out," said Rose, in a gentle
soothing manner, "you cannot but have the same feeling in
accompanying him."

"I beg your pardon!" replied Irene, briskly. "If I don't want to
ride, no company can make the act agreeable. Why can't people learn
to leave others in freedom? If Hartley had shown the same
unwillingness to join this riding party that I manifested, do you
think I would have uttered a second word in favor of going? No. I am
provoked at his persistence."

"There, there, Irene!" said Miss Carman, drawing an arm tenderly
around the neck of her friend; "don't trust such sentences on your
lips. I can't bear to hear you talk so. It isn't my sweet friend
speaking."

"You are a dear, good girl, Rose," replied Irene, smiling faintly,
"and I only wish that I had a portion of your calm, gentle spirit.
But I am as I am, and must act out if I act at all. I must be myself
or nothing."

"You can be as considerate of others as of yourself?" said Rose.

Irene looked at her companion inquiringly.

"I mean," added Rose, "that you can exercise the virtue of
self-denial in order to give pleasure to another--especially if that
other one be an object very dear to you. As in the present case,
seeing that your husband wants to join this riding party, you can,
for his sake, lay aside your indifference, and enter, with a hearty
good-will, into the proposed pastime."

"And why cannot he, seeing that I do not care to ride, deny himself
a little for my sake, and not drag me out against my will? Is all
the yielding and concession to be on my side? Must his will rule in
everything? I can tell you what it is, Rose, this will never suit
me. There will be open war between us before the honeymoon has waxed
and waned, if he goes on as he has begun."

"Hush! hush, Irene!" said her friend, in a tone of deprecation. "The
lightest sense of wrong gains undue magnitude the moment we begin to
complain. We see almost anything to be of greater importance when
from the obscurity of thought we bring it out into the daylight of
speech."

"It will be just as I say, and saying it will not make it any more
so," was Irene's almost sullen response to this. "I have my own
ideas of things and my own individuality, and neither of these do I
mean to abandon. If Hartley hasn't the good sense to let me have my
own way in what concerns myself, I will take my own way. As to the
troubles that may come afterward, I do not give them any weight in
the argument. I would die a martyr's deaths rather than become the
passive creature of another."

"My dear friend, why will you talk so?" Rose spoke in a tone of
grief.

"Simply because I am in earnest. From the hour of our marriage I
have seen a disposition on the part of my husband to assume
control--to make his will the general law of our actions. It has not
exhibited itself in things of moment, but in trifles, showing that
the spirit was there. I say this to you, Rose, because we have been
like sisters, and I can tell you of my inmost thoughts. There is a
cloud already in the sky, and it threatens an approaching storm."

"Oh, my friend, why are you so blind, so weak, so self-deceived? You
are putting forth your hands to drag down the temple of happiness.
If it fall, it will crush you beneath a mass of ruins; and not you
only, but the one you have so lately pledged yourself before God and
his angels to love."

"And I do love him as deeply as ever man was loved. Oh that he knew
my heart! He would not then shatter his image there. He would not
trifle with a spirit formed for intense, yielding, passionate love,
but rigid as steel and cold as ice when its freedom is touched. He
should have known me better before linking his fate with mine."

One of her darker moods had come upon Irene, and she was beating
about in the blind obscurity of passion. As she began to give
utterance to complaining thoughts, new thoughts formed themselves,
and what was only vague feelings grew into ideas of wrong; and
these, when once spoken, assumed a magnitude unimagined before. In
vain did her friend strive with her. Argument, remonstrance,
persuasion, only seemed to bring greater obscurity and to excite a
more bitter feeling in her mind. And so, despairing of any good
result, Rose withdrew, and left her with her own unhappy thoughts.

Not long after Miss Carman retired, Emerson came in. At the sound of
his approaching footsteps, Irene had, with a strong effort, composed
herself and swept back the deeper shadows from her face.

"Not ready yet?" he said, in a pleasant, half-chiding way. "The
carriages will be at the door in ten minutes."

"I am not going to ride out," returned Irene, in a quiet, seemingly
indifferent tone of voice. Hartley mistook her manner for sport, and
answered pleasantly--

"Oh yes you are, my little lady."

"No, I am not." There was no misapprehension now.

"Not going to ride out?" Hartley's brows contracted.

"No; I am not going to ride out to-day." Each word was distinctly
spoken.

"I don't understand you, Irene."

"Are not my words plain enough?"

"Yes, they are too plain--so plain as to make them involve a
mystery. What do you mean by this sudden change of purpose?"

"I don't wish to ride out," said Irene, with assumed calmness of
manner; "and that being so, may I not have my will in the case?"

"No--"

A red spot burned on Irene's cheeks and her eyes flashed.

"No," repeated her husband; "not after you have given up that will
to another."

"To you!" Irene started to her feet in instant passion. "And so I am
to be nobody, and you the lord and master. My will is to be nothing,
and yours the law of my life." Her lip curled in contemptuous anger.

"You misunderstand me," said Hartley Emerson, speaking as calmly as
was possible in this sudden emergency. "I did not refer specially to
myself, but to all of our party, to whom you had given up your will
in a promise to ride out with them, and to whom, therefore, you were
bound."

"An easy evasion," retorted the excited bride, who had lost her
mental equipoise.

"Irene," the young man spoke sternly, "are those the right words for
your husband? An easy evasion!"

"I have said them."

"And you must unsay them."

Both had passed under the cloud which pride and passion had raised.

"Must! I thought you knew me better, Hartley." Irene grew suddenly
calm.

"If there is to be love between us, all barriers must be removed."

"Don't say _must_ to me, sir! I will not endure the word."

Hartley turned from her and walked the floor with rapid steps,
angry, grieved and in doubt as to what it were best for him to do.
The storm had broken on him without a sign of warning, and he was
wholly unprepared to meet it.

"Irene," he said, at length, pausing before her, "this conduct on
your part is wholly inexplicable. I cannot understand its meaning.
Will you explain yourself?"

"Certainly. I am always ready to give a reason for my conduct," she
replied, with cold dignity.

"Say on, then." Emerson spoke with equal coldness of manner.

"I did not wish to ride out, and said so in the beginning. That
ought to have been enough for you. But no--my wishes were nothing;
your will must be law."

"And that is all! the head and front of my offending!" said Emerson,
in a tone of surprise.

"It isn't so much the thing itself that I object to, as the spirit
in which it is done," said Irene.

"A spirit of overbearing self-will!' said Emerson.

"Yes, if you choose. That is what my soul revolts against. I gave
you my heart and my hand--my love and my confidence--not my freedom.
The last is a part of my being, and I will maintain it while I have
life."

"Perverse girl! What insane spirit has got possession of your mind?"
exclaimed Emerson, chafed beyond endurance.

"Say on," retorted Irene; "I am prepared for this. I have seen, from
the hour of our marriage, that a time of strife would come; that
your will would seek to make itself ruler, and that I would not
submit. I did not expect the issue to come so soon. I trusted in
your love to spare me, at least, until I could be bidden from
general observation when I turned myself upon you and said, Thus far
thou mayest go, but no farther. But, come the struggle early or
late--now or in twenty years--I am prepared."

There came at this moment a rap at their door. Mr. Emerson opened
it.

"Carriage is waiting," said a servant.

"Say that we will be down in a few minutes."

The door closed.

"Come, Irene," said Mr. Emerson.

"You spoke very confidently to the servant, and said we would be
down in a few minutes."

"There, there, Irene! Let this folly die; it has lived long enough.
Come! Make yourself ready with all speed--our party is delayed by
this prolonged absence."

"You think me trifling, and treat me as if I were a captious child,"
said Irene, with chilling calmness; "but I am neither."

"Then you will not go?"

"I will not go." She said the words slowly and deliberately, and as
she spoke looked her husband steadily in the face. She was in
earnest, and he felt that further remonstrance would be in vain.

"You will repent of this," he replied, with enough of menace in his
voice to convey to her mind a great deal more than was in his
thoughts. And he turned from her and left the room. Going down
stairs, he found the riding-party waiting for their appearance.

"Where is Irene?" was asked by one and another, on seeing him alone.

"She does not care to ride out this afternoon, and so I have excused
her," he replied. Miss Carman looked at him narrowly, and saw that
there was a shade of trouble on his countenance, which he could not
wholly conceal. She would have remained behind with Irene, but that
would have disappointed the friend who was to be her companion in
the drive.

As the party was in couples, and as Mr. Emerson had made up his mind
to go without his young wife, he had to ride alone. The absence of
Irene was felt as a drawback to the pleasure of all the company.
Miss Carman, who understood the real cause of Irene's refusal to
ride, was so much troubled in her mind that she sat almost silent
during the two hours they were out. Mr. Emerson left the party after
they had been out for an hour, and returned to the hotel. His
excitement had cooled off, and he began to feel regret at the
unbending way in which he had met his bride's unhappy mood.

"Her over-sensitive mind has taken up a wrong impression," he said,
as he talked with himself; "and, instead of saying or doing anything
to increase that impression, I should, by word and act of kindness,
have done all in my power for its removal. Two wrongs never make a
right. Passion met by passion results not in peace. I should have
soothed and yielded, and so won her back to reason. As a man, I
ought to possess a cooler and more rationally balanced mind. She is
a being of feeling and impulse,--loving, ardent, proud, sensitive
and strong-willed. Knowing this, it was madness in me to chafe
instead of soothing her; to oppose, when gentle concession would
have torn from her eyes an illusive veil. Oh that I could learn
wisdom in time! I was in no ignorance as to her peculiar character.
I knew her faults and her weaknesses, as well as her nobler
qualities; and it was for me to stimulate the one and bear with the
others. Duty, love, honor, humanity, all pointed to this."

The longer Mr. Emerson's thoughts ran in this direction, the deeper
grew his feeling of self-condemnation, and the more tenderly yearned
his heart toward the young creature he had left alone with the
enemies of their peace nestling in her bosom and filling it with
passion and pain. After separating himself from his party, he drove
back toward the hotel at a speed that soon put his horses into a
foam.




CHAPTER V.

THE BURSTING OF THE STORM.


_MR. DELANCY_ was sitting in his library on the afternoon of the
fourth day since the wedding-party left Ivy Cliff, when the entrance
of some one caused him to turn toward the door.

"Irene!" he exclaimed, in a tone of anxiety and alarm, as he started
to his feet; for his daughter stood before him. Her face was pale,
her eyes fixed and sad, her dress in disorder.

"Irene, in Heaven's name, what has happened?"

"The worst," she answered, in a low, hoarse voice, not moving from
the spot where she first stood still.

"Speak plainly, my child. I cannot bear suspense."

"I have left my husband and returned to you!" was the firmly uttered
reply.

"Oh, folly! oh, madness! What evil counselor has prevailed with you,
my unhappy child?" said Mr. Delancy, in a voice of anguish.

"I have counseled with no one but myself."

"Never a wise counselor--never a wise counselor! But why, why have
you taken this desperate step?"

"In self-protection," replied Irene.

"Sit down, my child. There!" and he led her to a seat. "Now let me
remove your bonnet and shawl. How wretched you look, poor, misguided
one! I could have laid you in the grave with less agony than I feel
in seeing you thus."

Her heart was touched at this, and tears fell over her face. In the
selfishness of her own sternly-borne trouble, she had forgotten the
sorrow she was bringing to her father's heart.

"Poor child! poor child!" sobbed the old man, as he sat down beside
Irene and drew her head against his breast. And so both wept
together for a time. After they had grown calm, Mr. Delancy said--

"Tell me, Irene, without disguise of any kind, the meaning of this
step which you have so hastily taken. Let me have the beginning,
progress and consummation of the sad misunderstanding."

While yet under the government of blind passion, ere her husband
returned from the drive which Irene had refused to take with him,
she had, acting from a sudden suggestion that came to her mind, left
her room and, taking the cars, passed down to Albany, where she
remained until morning at one of the hotels. In silence and
loneliness she had, during the almost sleepless night that followed,
ample time for reflection and repentance. And both came, with
convictions of error and deep regret for the unwise, almost
disgraceful step she had taken, involving not only suffering, but
humiliating exposure of herself and husband. But it was felt to be
too late now to look back. Pride would have laid upon her a positive
interdiction, if other considerations had not come in to push the
question of return aside.

In the morning, without partaking of food, Irene left in the New
York boat, and passed down the river toward the home from which she
had gone forth, only a few days before, a happy bride--returning
with the cup, then full of the sweet wine of life, now brimming with
the bitterest potion that had ever touched her lips.

And so she had come back to her father's house. In all the hours of
mental anguish which had passed since her departure from Saratoga,
there had been an accusing spirit at her ear, and, resist as she
would, self-condemnation prevailed over attempted self-justification.
The cause of this unhappy rupture was so slight, the first provocation
so insignificant, that she felt the difficulty of making out her case
before her father. As to the world, pride counseled silence.

With but little concealment or extenuation of her own conduct, Irene
told the story of her disagreement with Hartley.

"And that was all!" exclaimed Mr. (sic) Delancey, in amazement, when
she ended her narrative.

"All, but enough!" she answered, with a resolute manner.

Mr. Delancy arose and walked the floor in silence for more than ten
minutes, during which time Irene neither spoke nor moved.

"Oh, misery!" ejaculated the father, at length, lifting his hands
above his head and then bringing them down with a gesture of
despair.

Irene started up and moved to his side.

"Dear father!" She spoke tenderly, laying her hands upon him; but he
pushed her away, saying--

"Wretched girl! you have laid upon my old head a burden of disgrace
and wretchedness that you have no power to remove."

"Father! father!" She clung to him, but he pushed her away. His
manner was like that of one suddenly bereft of reason. She clung
still, but he resolutely tore himself from her, when she fell
exhausted and fainting upon the floor.

Alarm now took the place of other emotions, and Mr. Delancy was
endeavoring to lift the insensible body, when a quick, heavy tread
in the portico caused him to look up, just as Hartley Emerson pushed
open one of the French windows and entered the library. He had a
wild, anxious, half-frightened look. Mr. Delancy let the body fall
from his almost paralyzed arms and staggered to a chair, while
Emerson sprung forward, catching up the fainting form of his young
bride and bearing it to a sofa.

"How long has she been in this way?" asked the young man, in a tone
of agitation.

"She fainted this moment," replied Mr. Delancy.

"How long has she been here?"

"Not half an hour," was answered; and as Mr. Delancy spoke he
reached for the bell and jerked it two or three times violently. The
waiter, startled by the loud, prolonged sound, came hurriedly to the
library.

"Send Margaret here, and then get a horse and ride over swiftly for
Dr. Edmundson. Tell him to come immediately."

The waiter stood for a moment or two, looking in a half-terrified
way upon the white, deathly face of Irene, and then fled from the
apartment. No grass grew beneath his horse's feet as he held him to
his utmost speed for the distance of two miles, which lay between
Ivy Cliff and the doctor's residence.

Margaret, startled by the hurried, half-incoherent summons of the
waiter, came flying into the library. The moment her eyes rested
upon Irene, who still insensible upon the sofa, she screamed out, in
terror--

"Oh, she's dead! she's dead!" and stood still as if suddenly
paralyzed; then, wringing her hands, she broke out in a wild,
sobbing tone--

"My poor, poor child! Oh, she is dead, dead!"

"No, Margaret," said Mr. Delancy, as calmly as he could speak, "she
is not dead; it is only a fainting fit. Bring some water, quickly."

Water was brought and dashed into the face of Irene; but there came
no sign of returning consciousness.

"Hadn't you better take her up to her room, Mr. Emerson?" suggested
Margaret.

"Yes," he replied; and, lifting the insensible form of his bride in
his arms, the unhappy man bore her to her chamber. Then, sitting
down beside the bed upon which he had placed her, he kissed her pale
cheeks and, laying his face to hers, sobbed and moaned, in the
abandonment of his grief, like a distressed child weeping in despair
for some lost treasure.

"Come," said Margaret, who was an old family domestic, drawing
Hartley from the bedside, "leave her alone with me for a little
while."

And the husband and father retired from the room. When they
returned, at the call of Margaret, they found Irene in bed, her
white, unconscious face scarcely relieved against the snowy pillow
on which her head was resting.

"She is alive," said Margaret, in a low and excited voice; "I can
feel her heart beat."

"Thank God!" ejaculated Emerson, bending again over the motionless
form and gazing anxiously down upon the face of his bride.

But there was no utterance of thankfulness in the heart of Mr.
Delancy. For her to come back again to conscious life was, he felt,
but a return to wretchedness. If the true prayer of his heart could
have found voice, it would have been for death, and not for life.

In silence, fear and suspense they waited an hour before the doctor
arrived. Little change in Irene took place during that time, except
that her respiration became clearer and the pulsations of her heart
distinct and regular. The application of warm stimulants was
immediately ordered, and their good effects soon became apparent.

"All will come right in a little while," said Dr. Edmundson,
encouragingly. "It seems to be only a fainting fit of unusual
length."

Hartley drew Mr. Delancy aside.

"It will be best that I should be alone with her when she recovers,"
said he.

"You may be right in that," said Mr. Delancy, after a moment's
reflection.

"I am sure that I am," was returned.

"You think she will recover soon?" said Mr. Delancy, approaching the
doctor.

"Yes, at any moment. She is breathing deeper, and her heart beats
with a fuller impulse."

"Let us, retire, then;" and he drew the doctor from the apartment.
Pausing at the door, he called to Margaret in a half whisper. She
went out also, Emerson alone remaining.

Taking his place by the bedside, he waited, in trembling anxiety,
for the moment when her eyes should open and recognize him. At last
there came a quivering of the eyelids and a motion about the
sleeper's lips. Emerson bent over and took one of her hands in his.

"Irene!" He called her name in a voice of the tenderest affection.
The sound seemed to penetrate to the region of consciousness, for
her lips moved with a murmur of inarticulate words. He kissed her,
and said again--

"Irene!"

There was a sudden lighting up of her face.

"Irene, love! darling!" The voice of Emerson was burdened with
tenderness.

"Oh, Hartley!" she exclaimed, opening her eyes and looking with a
kind of glad bewilderment into his face. Then, half rising and
drawing her arms around his neck, she hid her face on his bosom,
murmuring--

"Thank God that it is only a dream!"

"Yes, thank God!" replied her husband, as he kissed her in a kind of
wild fervor; "and may such dreams never come again."

She lay very still for some moments. Thought and memory were
beginning to act feebly. The response of her husband had in it
something that set her to questioning. But there was one thing that
made her feel happy: the sound of his loving voice was in her ears;
and all the while she felt his hand moving, with a soft, caressing
touch, over her cheek and temple.

"Dear Irene!" he murmured in her ears; and then her hand tightened
on his.

And thus she remained until conscious life regained its full
activity. Then the trial came.

Suddenly lifting herself from the bosom of her husband, Irene gave a
hurried glance around the well-known chamber, then turned and looked
with a strange, fearful questioning glance into his face:

"Where am I? What does this mean?"

"It means," replied Emerson, "that the dream, thank God! is over,
and that my dear wife is awake again."

He placed his arms again around her and drew her to his heart,
almost smothering her, as he did so, with kisses.

She lay passive for a little while; then, disengaging herself, she
said, faintly--

"I feel weak and bewildered; let me lie down."

She closed her eyes as Emerson placed her back on the pillow, a sad
expression covering her still pallid face. Sitting down beside her,
he took her hand and held it with a firm pressure. She did not
attempt to withdraw it. He kissed her, and a warmer flush came over
her face.

"Dear Irene!" His hand pressed tightly upon hers, and she returned
the pressure.

"Shall I call your father? He is very anxious about you."

"Not yet." And she caught slightly her breath, as if feeling were
growing too strong for her.

"Let it be as a dream, Hartley." Irene lifted herself up and looked
calmly, but with a very sad expression on her countenance, into her
husband's face.

"Between us two, Irene, even as a dream from which both have
awakened," he replied.

She closed her eyes and sunk back upon the pillow.

Mr. Emerson then went to the door and spoke to Mr. Delancy. On a
brief consultation it was thought best for Dr. Edmundson not to see
her again. A knowledge of the fact that he had been called in might
give occasion for more disturbing thoughts than were already
pressing upon her mind. And so, after giving some general directions
as to the avoidance of all things likely to excite her mind
unpleasantly, the doctor withdrew.

Mr. Delancy saw his daughter alone. The interview was long and
earnest. On his part was the fullest disapproval of her conduct and
the most solemnly spoken admonitions and warnings. She confessed her
error, without any attempt at excuse or palliation, and promised a
wiser conduct in the future.

"There is not one husband in five," said the father, "who would have
forgiven an act like this, placing him, as it does, in such a false
and humiliating position before the world. He loves you with too
deep and true a love, my child, for girlish trifling like this. And
let me warn you of the danger you incur of turning against you the
spirit of such a man. I have studied his character closely, and I
see in it an element of firmness that, if it once sets itself, will
be as inflexible as iron. If you repeat acts of this kind, the day
must come when forbearance will cease; and then, in turning from
you, it will be never to turn back again. Harden him against you
once, and it will be for all time."

Irene wept bitterly at this strong representation, and trembled at
thought of the danger she had escaped.

To her husband, when she was alone with him again, she confessed her
fault, and prayed him to let the memory of it pass from his mind for
ever. On his part was the fullest denial of any purpose whatever, in
the late misunderstanding, to bend her to his will. He assured her
that if he had dreamed of any serious objection on her part to the
ride, he would not have urged it for a moment. It involved no
promised pleasure to him apart from pleasure to her; and it was
because he believed that she would enjoy the drive that he had urged
her to make one of the party.

All this was well, as far as it could go. But repentance and mutual
forgiveness did not restore everything to the old condition--did not
obliterate that one sad page in their history, and leave them free
to make a new and better record. If the folly had been in private,
the effort at forgiving and forgetting would have been attended with
fewer annoying considerations. But it was committed in public, and
under circumstances calculated to attract attention and occasion
invidious remark. And then, how were they to meet the different
members of the wedding-party, which they had so suddenly thrown into
consternation?

On the next day the anxious members of this party made their
appearance at Ivy Cliff, not having, up to this time, received any
intelligence of the fugitive bride. Mr. Delancy did not attempt to
excuse to them the unjustifiable conduct of his daughter, beyond the
admission that she must have been temporarily deranged. Something
was said about resuming the bridal tour, but Mr. Delancy said, "No;
the quiet of Ivy Cliff will yield more pleasure than the excitement
of travel."

And all felt this to be true.




CHAPTER VI.

AFTER THE STORM.


_AFTER_ the storm. Alas! that there should be a wreck-strewn shore
so soon! That within three days of the bridal morning a tempest
should have raged, scattering on the wind sweet blossoms which had
just opened to the sunshine, tearing away the clinging vines of
love, and leaving marks of desolation which no dew and sunshine
could ever obliterate!

It was not a blessed honeymoon to them. How could it be, after what
had passed? Both were hurt and mortified; and while there was mutual
forgiveness and great tenderness and fond concessions, one toward
the other, there was a sober, thoughtful state of mind, not
favorable to happiness.

Mr. Delancy hoped the lesson--a very severe one--might prove the
guarantee of future peace. It had, without doubt, awakened Irene's
mind to sober thoughts--and closer self-examination than usual. She
was convicted in her own heart of folly, the memory of which could
never return to her without a sense of pain.

At the end of three weeks from the day of their marriage, Mr. and
Mrs. Emerson went down to the city to take possession of their new
home. On the eve of their departure from Ivy Cliff, Mr. Delancy had
a long conference with his daughter, in which he conjured her, by
all things sacred, to guard herself against that blindness of
passion which had already produced such unhappy consequences. She
repeated, with many tears, her good resolutions for the future, and
showed great sorrow and contrition for the past.

"It may come out right," said the old man to himself; as he sat
alone, with a pressure of foreboding on his mind, looking into the
dim future, on the day of their departure for New York. His only and
beloved child had gone forth to return no more, unless in sorrow or
wretchedness. "It may come out right, but my heart has sad
misgivings."

There was a troubled suspense of nearly a week, when the first
letter came from Irene to her father. He broke the seal with
unsteady hands, fearing to let his eyes fall upon the opening page.

"My dear, dear father! I am a happy young wife."

"Thank God!" exclaimed the old man aloud, letting the hand fall that
held Irene's letter. It was some moments before he could read
farther; then he drank in, with almost childish eagerness, every
sentence of the long letter.

"Yes, yes, it may come out right," said Mr. Delancy; "it may come
out right." He uttered the words, so often on his lips, with more
confidence than usual. The letter strongly urged him to make her a
visit, if it was only for a day or two.

"You know, dear father," she wrote, "that most of your time is to be
spent with us--all your winters, certainly; and we want you to begin
the new arrangement as soon as possible."

Mr. Delancy sighed over the passage. He had not set his heart on
this arrangement. It might have been a pleasant thing for him to
anticipate; but there was not the hopeful basis for anticipation
which a mind like his required.

Not love alone prompted Mr. Delancy to make an early visit to New
York; a feeling of anxiety to know how it really was with the young
couple acted quite as strongly in the line of incentive. And so he
went down to the city and passed nearly a week there. Both Irene and
her husband knew that he was observing them closely all the while,
and a consciousness of this put them under some constraint.
Everything passed harmoniously, and Mr. Delancy returned with the
half-hopeful, half-doubting words on his lips, so often and often
repeated--

"Yes, yes, it may come out right."

But it was not coming out altogether right. Even while the old man
was under her roof, Irene had a brief season of self-willed reaction
against her husband, consequent on some unguarded word or act, which
she felt to be a trespass on her freedom. To save appearances while
Mr. Delancy was with them, Hartley yielded and tendered
conciliation, all the while that his spirit chafed sorely.

The departure of Mr. Delancy for Ivy Cliff was the signal for both
Irene and her husband to lay aside a portion of the restraint which
each had borne with a certain restlessness that longed for a time of
freedom. On the very day that he left Irene showed so much that
seemed to her husband like perverseness of will that he was
seriously offended, and spoke an unguarded word that was as fire to
stubble--a word that was repented of as soon as spoken, but which
pride would not permit him to recall. It took nearly a week of
suffering to discipline the mind of Mr. Emerson to the point of
conciliation. On the part of Irene there was not the thought of
yielding. Her will, supported by pride, was as rigid as iron. Reason
had no power over her. She felt, rather than thought.

Thus far, both as lover and husband, in all their alienations,
Hartley had been the first to yield; and it was so now. He was
strong-willed and persistent; but cooler reason helped him back into
the right way, and he had, thus far, found it quicker than Irene.
Not that he suffered less or repented sooner. Irene's suffering was
far deeper, but she was blinder and more self-determined.

Again the sun of peace smiled down upon them, but, as before, on
something shorn of its strength or beauty.

"I will be more guarded," said Hartley to himself. "Knowing her
weakness, why should I not protect her against everything that
wounds her sensitive nature? Love concedes, is long suffering and
full of patience. I love Irene--words cannot tell how deeply. Then
why should I not, for her sake, bear and forbear? Why should I think
of myself and grow fretted because she does not yield as readily as
I could desire to my wishes?"

So Emerson talked with himself and resolved. But who does not know
the feebleness of resolution when opposed to temperament and
confirmed habits of mind? How weak is mere human strength! Alas! how
few, depending on that alone, are ever able to bear up steadily, for
any length of time, against the tide of passion!

Off his guard in less than twenty-four hours after resolving thus
with himself, the young husband spoke in captious disapproval of
something which Irene had done or proposed to do, and the
consequence was the assumption on her part of a cold, reserved and
dignified manner, which hurt and annoyed him beyond measure. Pride
led him to treat her in the same way; and so for days they met in
silence or formal courtesy, all the while suffering a degree of
wretchedness almost impossible to be endured, and all the while,
which was worst of all, writing on their hearts bitter things
against each other.

To Emerson, as before, the better state first returned, and the
sunshine of his countenance drove the shadows from hers. Then for a
season they were loving, thoughtful, forbearing and happy. But the
clouds came back again, and storms marred the beauty of their lives.

All this was sad--very sad. There were good and noble qualities in
the hearts of both. They were not narrow-minded and selfish, like so
many of your placid, accommodating, calculating people, but generous
in their feelings and broad in their sympathies. They had ideals of
life that went reaching out far beyond themselves. Yes, it was sad
to see two such hearts beating against and bruising each other,
instead of taking the same pulsation. But there seemed to be no help
for them. Irene's jealous guardianship of her freedom, her quick
temper, pride and self-will made the position of her husband so
difficult that it was almost impossible for him to avoid giving
offence.

The summer and fall passed away without any serious rupture between
the sensitive couple, although there had been seasons of great
unhappiness to both. Irene had been up to Ivy Cliff many times to
visit her father, and now she was, beginning to urge his removal to
the city for the winter; but Mr. Delancy, who had never given his
full promise to this arrangement, felt less and less inclined to
leave his old home as the season advanced. Almost from boyhood he
had lived there, and his habits were formed for rural instead of
city life.

He pictured the close streets, with their rows of houses, that left
for the eye only narrow patches of ethereal blue, and contrasted
this with the broad winter landscape, which for him had always
spread itself out with a beauty rivaled by no other season, and his
heart failed him.

The brief December days were on them, and Irene grew more urgent.

"Come, dear father," she wrote. "I think of you, sitting all alone
at Ivy Cliff, during these long evenings, and grow sad at heart in
sympathy with your loneliness. Come at once. Why linger a week or
even a day longer? We have been all in all to each other these many
years, and ought not to be separated now."

But Mr. Delancy was not ready to exchange the pure air and
widespreading scenery of the Highlands for a city residence, even in
the desolate winter, and so wrote back doubtingly. Irene and her
husband then came up to add the persuasion of their presence at Ivy
Cliff. It did not avail, however. The old man was too deeply wedded
to his home.

"I should be miserable in New York," he replied to their earnest
entreaties; "and it would not add to your happiness to see me going
about with a sober, discontented face, or to be reminded every
little while that if you had left me to my winter's hibernation I
would have been a contented instead of a dissatisfied old man. No,
no, my children; Ivy Cliff is the best place for me. You shall come
up and spend Christmas here, and we will have a gay season."

There was no further use in argument. Mr. Delancy would have his
way; and he was right.

Irene and her husband went back to the city, with a promise to spend
Christmas at the old homestead.

Two weeks passed. It was the twentieth of December. Without previous
intimation, Irene came up alone to Ivy Cliff, startling her father
by coming in suddenly upon him one dreary afternoon, just as the
leaden sky began to scatter down the winter's first offering of
snow.

"My daughter!" he exclaimed, so surprised that he could not move
from where he was sitting.

"Dear father!" she answered with a loving smile, throwing her arms
around his neck and kissing him.

"Where is Hartley?" asked the old man, looking past Irene toward the
door through which she had just entered.

"Oh, I left him in New York," she replied.

"In New York! Have you come alone?"

"Yes. Christmas is only five days off, you know, and I am here to
help you prepare for it. Of course, Hartley cannot leave his
business."

She spoke in an excited, almost gay tone of voice. Mr. Delancy
looked at her earnestly. Unpleasant doubts flitted through his mind.

"When will your husband come up?" he inquired.

"At Christmas," she answered, without hesitation.

"Why didn't you write, love?" asked Mr. Delancy. "You have taken me
by surprise, and set my nerves in a flutter."

"I only thought about it last evening. One of my sudden
resolutions."

And she laughed a low, fluttering laugh. It might have been an
error, but her father had a fancy that it did not come from her
heart.

"I will run up stairs and put off my things," she said, moving away.

"Did you bring a trunk?"

"Oh yes; it is at the landing. Will you send for it?"

And Irene went, with quick steps, from the apartment, and ran up to
the chamber she still called her own. On the way she met Margaret.

"Miss Irene!" exclaimed the latter, pausing and lifting her hands in
astonishment. "Why, where did you come from?"

"Just arrived in the boat. Have come to help you get ready for
Christmas."

"Please goodness, how you frightened me!" said the warm-hearted
domestic, who had been in the family ever since Irene was a child,
and was strongly attached to her. "How's Mr. Emerson?"

"Oh, he's well, thank you, Margaret."

"Well now, child, you did set me all into a fluster. I thought maybe
you'd got into one of your tantrums, and come off and left your
husband."

"Why, Margaret!" A crimson flush mantled the face of Irene.

"You must excuse me, child, but just that came into my head,"
replied Margaret. "You're very downright and determined sometimes;
and there isn't anything hardly that you wouldn't do if the spirit
was on you. I'm glad it's all right. Dear me! dear me!"

"Oh, I'm not quite so bad as you all make me out," said Irene,
laughing.

"I don't think you are bad," answered Margaret, in kind deprecation,
yet with a freedom of speech warranted by her years and attachment
to Irene. "But you go off in such strange ways--get so wrong-headed
sometimes--that there's no counting on you."

Then, growing more serious, she added--

"The fact is, Miss Irene, you keep me feeling kind of uneasy all the
time. I dreamed about you last night, and maybe that has helped to
put me into a fluster now."

"Dreamed about me!" said Irene, with a degree of interest in her
manner.

"Yes. But don't stand here, Miss Irene; come over to your room."

"What kind of a dream had you, Margaret?" asked the young wife, as
she sat down on the side of the bed where, pillowed in sleep, she
had dreamed so many of girlhood's pleasant dreams.

"I was dreaming all night about you," replied Margaret, looking
sober-faced.

"And you saw me in trouble?"

"Oh dear, yes; in nothing but trouble. I thought once that I saw you
in a great room full of wild beasts. They were chained or in cages;
but you would keep going close up to the bars of the cages, or near
enough for the chained animals to spring upon you. And that wasn't
all. You put the end of your little parasol in between the bars, and
a fierce tiger struck at you with his great cat-like paw, tearing
the flesh from your arm. Then I saw you in a little boat, down on
the river. You had put up a sail, and was going out all alone. I saw
the boat move off from the shore just as plainly as I see you now. I
stood and watched until you were in the middle of the river. Then I
thought Mr. Emerson was standing by me, and that we both saw a great
monster--a whale, or something else--chasing after your boat. Mr.
Emerson was in great distress, and said, 'I told her not to go, but
she is so self-willed.' And then he jumped into a boat and, taking
the oars, went gliding out after you as swiftly as the wind. I never
saw mortal arm make a boat fly as he did that little skiff. And I
saw him strike the monster with his oar just as his huge jaws were
opened to devour you. Dear! dear; but I was frightened, and woke up
all in a tremble."

"Before he had saved me?" said Irene, taking a deep breath.

"Yes; but I don't think there was any chance of saving there, and I
was glad that I waked up when I did."

"What else did you dream?" asked Irene.

"Oh, I can't tell you all I dreamed. Once I saw you fall from the
high rock just above West Point and go dashing down into the river.
Then I saw you chased by a mad bull."

"And no one came to my rescue?"

"Oh yes, there was more than one who tried to save you. First, your
father ran in between you and the bull; but he dashed over him. Then
I saw Mr. Emerson rushing up with a pitchfork, and he got before the
mad animal and pointed the sharp prongs at his eyes; but the bull
tore down on him and tossed him away up into the air. I awoke as I
saw him falling on the sharp-pointed horns that were held up to
catch him."

"Well, Margaret, you certainly had a night of horrors," said Irene,
in a sober way.

"Indeed, miss, and I had; such a night as I don't wish to have
again."

"And your dreaming was all about me?"

"Yes."

"And I was always in trouble or danger?"

"Yes, always; and it was mostly your own fault, too. And that
reminds me of what the minister told us in his sermon last Sunday.
He said that there were a great many kinds of trouble in this
world--some coming from the outside and some coming from the inside;
that the outside troubles, which we couldn't help, were generally
easiest to be borne; while the inside troubles, which we might have
prevented, were the bitterest things in life, because there was
remorse as well as suffering. I understood very well what he meant."

"I am afraid," said Irene, speaking partly to herself, "that most of
my troubles come from the inside."

"I'm afraid they do," spoke out the frank domestic.

"Margaret!"

"Indeed, miss, and I do think so. If you'd only get right
here"--laying her hand upon her breast--"somebody beside yourself
would be a great deal happier. There now, child, I've said it; and
you needn't go to getting angry with me."

"They are often our best friends who use the plainest speech," said
Irene. "No, Margaret, I am not going to be angry with one whom I
know to be true-hearted."

"Not truer-hearted than your husband, Miss Irene; nor half so
loving."

"Why did you say that?" Margaret started at the tone of voice in
which this interrogation was made.

"Because I think so," she answered naively.

Irene looked at her for some moments with a penetrating gaze, and
then said, with an affected carelessness of tone--

"Your preacher and your dreams have made you quite a moralist."

"They have not taken from my heart any of the love it has felt for
you," said Margaret, tears coming into her eyes.

"I know that, Margaret. You were always too kind and indulgent, and
I always too wayward and unreasonable. But I am getting years on my
side, and shall not always be a foolish girl."

Snow had now begun to fall thickly, and the late December day was
waning toward the early twilight. Margaret went down stairs and left
Irene alone in her chamber, where she remained until nearly tea-time
before joining her father.

Mr. Delancy did not altogether feel satisfied in his mind about this
unheralded visit from his daughter, with whose wayward moods he was
too familiar. It might be all as she said, but there were intrusive
misgivings that troubled him.

At tea-time she took her old place at the table in such an easy,
natural way, and looked so pleased and happy, that her father was
satisfied. He asked about her husband, and she talked of him without
reserve.

"What day is Hartley coming up?" he inquired.

"I hope to see him on the day before Christmas," returned Irene.
There was a falling in her voice that, to the ears of Mr. Delancy,
betrayed a feeling of doubt.

"He will not, surely, put it off later," said the father.

"I don't know," said Irene. "He may be prevented from leaving early
enough to reach here before Christmas morning. If there should be a
cold snap, and the river freeze up, it will make the journey
difficult and attended with delay."

"I think the winter has set in;" and Mr. Delancy turned his ear
toward the window, against which the snow and hail were beating with
violence. "It's a pity Hartley didn't come up with you."

A sober hue came over the face of Irene. This did not escape the
notice of her father; but it was natural that she should feel sober
in thinking of her husband as likely to be kept from her by the
storm. That such were her thoughts her words made evident, for she
said, glancing toward the window--

"If there should be a deep snow, and the boats stop running, how can
Hartley reach here in time?"

On the next morning the sun rose bright and warm for the season.
Several inches of snow had fallen, giving to the landscape a wintry
whiteness, but the wind was coming in from the south, genial as
spring. Before night half the snowy covering was gone.

"We had our fears for nothing," said Mr. Delancy, on the second day,
which was as mild as the preceding one. "All things promise well. I
saw the boats go down as usual; so the river is open still."

Irene did not reply. Mr. Delancy looked at her curiously, but her
face was partly turned away and he did not get its true expression.

The twenty-fourth came. No letter had been received by Irene, nor
had she written to New York since her arrival at Ivy Cliff.

"Isn't it singular that you don't get a letter from Hartley?" said
Mr. Delancy.

Irene had been sitting silent for some time when her father made
this remark.

"He is very busy," she said, in reply.

"That's no excuse. A man is never too busy to write to his absent
wife."

"I haven't expected a letter, and so am not disappointed. But he's
on his way, no doubt. How soon will the boat arrive?"

"Between two and three o'clock."

"And it's now ten."

The hours passed on, and the time of arrival came. The windows of
Irene's chamber looked toward the river, and she was standing at one
of them alone when the boat came in sight. Her face was almost
colorless, and contracted by an expression of deep anxiety. She
remained on her feet for the half hour that intervened before the
boat could reach the landing. It was not the first time that she had
watched there, in the excitement of doubt and fear, for the same
form her eyes were now straining themselves to see.

The shrill sound of escaping steam ceased to quiver on the air, and
in a few minutes the boat shot forward into view and went gliding up
the river. Irene scarcely breathed, as she stood, with colorless
face, parted lips and eager eyes, looking down the road that led to
the landing. But she looked in vain; the form of her husband did not
appear--and it was Christmas Eve!

What did it mean?




CHAPTER VII.

THE LETTER.


_YES_, what did it mean? Christmas Eve, and Hartley still absent?

Twilight was falling when Irene came down from her room and joined
her father in the library. Mr. Delancy looked into her face narrowly
as she entered. The dim light of the closing day was not strong
enough to give him its true expression; but he was not deceived as
to its troubled aspect.

"And so Hartley will not be here to-day," he said, in a tone that
expressed both disappointment and concern.

"No. I looked for him confidently. It is strange."

There was a constraint, a forced calmness in Irene's voice that did
not escape her father's notice.

"I hope he is not sick," said Mr. Delancy.

"Oh no." Irene spoke with a sudden earnestness; then, with failing
tones, added--

"He should have been here to-day."

She sat down near the open grate, shading her face with a
hand-screen, and remained silent and abstracted for some time.

"There is scarcely a possibility of his arrival to-night," said Mr.
Delancy. He could not get his thoughts away from the fact of his
son-in-law's absence.

"He will not be here to-night," replied Irene, a cold dead level in
her voice, that Mr. Delancy well understood to be only a blind
thrown up to conceal her deeply-disturbed feelings.

"Do you expect him to-morrow, my daughter?" asked Mr. Delancy, a few
moments afterward, speaking as if from a sudden thought or a sudden
purpose. There was a meaning in his tones that showed his mind to be
in a state not prepared to brook evasion.

"I do," was the unhesitating answer; and she turned and looked
calmly at her father, whose eyes rested with a fixed, inquiring gaze
upon her countenance. But half her face was lit by a reflection from
the glowing grate, while half lay in shadow. His reading, therefore
was not clear.

If Irene had shown surprise at the question, her father would have
felt better satisfied. He meant it as a probe; but if a tender spot
was reached, she had the self-control not to give a sign of pain. At
the tea-table Irene rallied her spirits and talked lightly to her
father; it was only by an effort that he could respond with even
apparent cheerfulness.

Complaining of a headache, Irene retired, soon after tea, to her
room, and did not come down again during the evening.

The next day was Christmas. It rose clear and mild as a day in
October. When Irene came down to breakfast, her pale, almost
haggard, face showed too plainly that she had passed a night of
sleeplessness and suffering. She said, "A merry Christmas," to her
father, on meeting him, but there was no heart in the words. It was
almost impossible to disguise the pain that almost stifled
respiration. Neither of them did more than make a feint at eating.
As Mr. Delancy arose from the table, he said to Irene--

"I would like to see you in the library, my daughter."

She followed him passively, closing the door behind her as she
entered.

"Sit down. There." And Mr. Delancy placed a chair for her, a little
way from the grate.

Irene dropped into the chair like one who moved by another's
volition.

"Now, daughter," said Mr. Delancy, taking a chair, and drawing it in
front of the one in which she was seated, "I am going to ask a plain
question, and I want a direct answer."

Irene rallied herself on the instant.

"Did you leave New York with the knowledge and consent of your
husband?"

The blood mounted to her face and stained it a deep crimson:

"I left without his knowledge. Consent I never ask."

The old proud spirit was in her tones.

"I feared as much," replied Mr. Delancy, his voice falling. "Then
you do not expect Hartley to-day?"

"I expected him yesterday. He may be here to-day. I am almost sure
he will come."

"Does he know you are here?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave without his knowledge?"

"To punish him."

"Irene!"

"I have answered without evasion. It was to punish him."

"I do not remember in the marriage vows you took upon yourselves
anything relating to punishments," said Mr. Delancy. "There were
explicit things said of love and duty, but I do not recall a
sentence that referred to the right of one party to punish the
other."

Mr. Delancy paused for a few moments, but there was no reply to this
rather novel and unexpected view of the case.

"Did you by anything in the rite acquire authority to punish your
husband when his conduct didn't just suit your fancy?"

Mr. Delancy pressed the question.

"It is idle, father," said Irene, with some sharpness of tone, "to
make an issue like this. It does not touch the case. Away back of
marriage contracts lie individual rights, which are never
surrendered. The right of self-protection is one of these; and if
retaliation is needed as a guarantee of future peace, then the right
to punish is included in the right of self-protection."

"A peace gained through coercion of any kind is not worth having. It
is but the semblance of peace--is war in bonds," replied Mr.
Delancy. "The moment two married partners begin the work of coercion
and punishment, that moment love begins to fail. If love gives not
to their hearts a common beat, no other power is strong enough to do
the work. Irene, I did hope that the painful experiences already
passed through would have made you wiser. It seems not, however. It
seems that self-will, passion and a spirit of retaliation are to
govern your actions, instead of patience and love. Well, my child,
if you go on sowing this seed in your garden now, in the spring-time
of life, you must not murmur when autumn gives you a harvest of
thorns and thistles. If you sow tares in your field, you must not
expect to find corn there when you put in your sickle to reap. You
can take back your morning salutation. It is not a 'merry Christmas'
to you or to me; and I think we are both done with merry
Christmases."

"Father!"

The tone in which this word was uttered was almost a cry of pain.

"It is even so, my child--even so," replied Mr. Delancy, in a voice
of irrepressible sadness. "You have left your husband a second time.
It is not every man who would forgive the first offence; not one in
twenty who would pardon the second. You are in great peril, Irene.
This storm that you have conjured up may drive you to hopeless
shipwreck. You need not expect Hartley to-day. He will not come. I
have studied his character well, and know that he will not pass this
conduct over lightly."

Even while this was said a servant, who had been over to the
village, brought in a letter and handed it to Mr. Delancy, who,
recognizing in the superscription the handwriting of his daughter's
husband, broke the seal hurriedly. The letter was in these words:


"MY DEAR SIR: As your daughter has left me, no doubt with the
purpose of finally abandoning the effort to live in that harmony so
essential to happiness in married life, I shall be glad if you will
choose some judicious friend to represent her in consultation with a
friend whom I will select, with a view to the arrangement of a
separation, as favorable to her in its provisions as it can possibly
be made. In view of the peculiarity of our temperaments, we made a
great error in this experiment. My hope was that love would be
counselor to us both; that the law of mutual forbearance would have
rule. But we are both too impulsive, too self-willed, too
undisciplined. I do not pretend to throw all the blame on Irene. We
are as flint and steel. But she has taken the responsibility of
separation, and I am left without alternative. May God lighten the
burden of pain her heart will have to bear in the ordeal through
which she has elected to pass.

Your unhappy son,

"HARTLEY EMERSON."


Mr. Delancy's hand shook so violently before he had finished reading
that the paper rattled in the air. On finishing the last sentence he
passed it, without a word, to his daughter. It was some moments
before the strong agitation produced by the sight of this letter,
and its effect upon her father, could be subdued enough to enable
her to read a line.

"What does it mean, father? I don't understand it," she said, in a
hoarse, deep whisper, and with pale, quivering lips.

"It means," said Mr. Delancy, "that your husband has taken you at
your word."

"At my word! What word?"

"You have left the home he provided for you, I believe?"

"Father!"

Her eyes stood out staringly.

"Let me read the letter for you." And he took it from her hand.
After reading it aloud and slowly, he said--

"That is plain talk, Irene. I do not think any one can misunderstand
it. You have, in his view, left him finally, and he now asks me to
name a judicious friend to meet his friend, and arrange a basis of
separation as favorable to you in its provisions as it can possibly
be made."

"A separation, father! Oh no, he cannot mean that!" And she pressed
her hands strongly against her temples.

"Yes, my daughter, that is the simple meaning."

"Oh no, no, no! He never meant that."

"You left him?"

"But not in that way; not in earnest. It was only in fitful
anger--half sport, half serious."

"Then, in Heaven's name, sit down and write him so, and that without
the delay of an instant. He has put another meaning on your conduct.
He believes that you have abandoned him."

"Abandoned him! Madness!" And Irene, who had risen from her chair,
commenced moving about the room in a wild, irresolute kind of way,
something like an actress under tragic excitement.

"This is meant to punish me!" she said, stopping suddenly, and
speaking in a voice slightly touched with indignation. "I understand
it all, and see it as a great outrage. Hartley knows as well I do
that I left as much in sport as in earnest. But this is carrying the
joke too far. To write such a letter to you! Why didn't he write to
me? Why didn't he ask me to appoint a friend to represent me in the
arrangement proposed?"

"He understood himself and the case entirely," replied Mr. Delancy.
"Believing that you had abandoned him--"

"He didn't believe any such thing!" exclaimed Irene, in strong
excitement.

"You are deceiving yourself, my daughter. His letter is calm and
deliberate. It was not written, as you can see by the date, until
yesterday. He has taken time to let passion cool. Three days were
permitted to elapse, that you might be heard from in case any change
of purpose occurred. But you remained silent. You abandoned him."

"Oh, father, why will you talk in this way? I tell you that Hartley
is only doing this to punish me; that he has no more thought of an
actual separation than he has of dying."

"Admit this to be so, which I only do in the argument," said Mr.
Delancy, "and what better aspect does it present?"

"The better aspect of sport as compared with earnest," replied
Irene.

"At which both will continue to play until earnest is reached--and a
worse earnest than the present. Take the case as you will, and it is
one of the saddest and least hopeful that I have seen."

Irene did not reply.

"You must elect some course of action, and that with the least
possible delay," said Mr. Delancy. "This letter requires an
immediate answer. Go to your room and, in communion with God and
your own heart, come to some quick decision upon the subject."

Irene turned away without speaking and left her father alone in the
library.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE FLIGHT AND THE RETURN.


_WE_ will not speak of the cause that led to this serious rupture
between Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. It was light as vanity--an airy
nothing in itself--a spark that would have gone out on a baby's
cheek without leaving a sign of its existence. On the day that Irene
left the home of her husband he had parted from her silent, moody
and with ill-concealed anger. Hard words, reproaches and accusations
had passed between them on the night previous; and both felt
unusually disturbed. The cause of all this, as we have said, was
light as vanity. During the day Mr. Emerson, who was always first to
come to his senses, saw the folly of what had occurred, and when he
turned his face homeward, after three o'clock, it was with the
purpose of ending the unhappy state by recalling a word to which he
had given thoughtless utterance.

The moment our young husband came to this sensible conclusion his
heart beat with a freer motion and his spirits rose again into a
region of tranquillity. He felt the old tenderness toward his wife
returning, dwelt on her beauty, accomplishments, virtues and high
mental endowments with a glow of pride, and called her defects of
character light in comparison.

"If I were more a man, and less a child of feeling and impulse," he
said to himself, "I would be more worthy to hold the place of
husband to a woman like Irene. She has strong peculiarities--who has
not peculiarities? Am I free from them? She is no ordinary woman,
and must not be trammeled by ordinary tame routine. She has quick
impulses; therefore, if I love her, should I not guard them, lest
they leap from her feebly restraining hand in the wrong direction?
She is sensitive to control; why, then, let her see the hand that
must lead her, sometimes, aside from the way she would walk through
the promptings of her own will? Do I not know that she loves me? And
is she not dear to me as my own life? What folly to strive with each
other! What madness to let angry feelings shadow for an instant our
lives!"

It was in this state of mind that Emerson returned home. There were
a few misgivings in his heart as he entered, for he was not sure as
to the kind of reception Irene would offer his overtures for peace;
but there was no failing of his purpose to sue for peace and obtain
it. With a quick step he passed through the hall, and, after
glancing into the parlors to see if his wife were there, went up
stairs with two or three light bounds. A hurried glance through the
chambers showed him that they had no occupant. He was turning to
leave them, when a letter, placed upright on a bureau, attracted his
attention. He caught it up. It was addressed to him in the
well-known hand of his wife. He opened it and read:

"I leave for Ivy Cliff to-day. IRENE."

Two or three times Emerson read the line--"I leave for Ivy Cliff
to-day"--and looked at the signature, before its meaning came fully
into his thought.

"Gone to Ivy Cliff!" he said, at last, in a low, hoarse voice.
"Gone, and without a word of intimation or explanation! Gone, and in
the heat of anger! Has it come to this, and so soon! God help us!"
And the unhappy man sunk into a chair, heart-stricken and weak as a
child.

For nearly the whole of the night that followed he walked the floor
of his room, and the next day found him in a feverish condition of
both mind and body. Not once did the thought of following his wife
to Ivy Cliff, if it came into his mind, rest there for a moment. She
had gone home to her father with only an announcement of the fact.
He would wait some intimation of her further purpose; but, if they
met again, she must come back to him. This was his first,
spontaneous conclusion; and it was not questioned in his thought,
nor did he waver from it an instant. She must come back of her own
free will, if she came back at all.

It was on the twentieth day of December that Irene left New York.
Not until the twenty-second could a letter from her reach Hartley,
if, on reflection or after conference with her father, she desired
to make a communication. But the twenty-second came and departed
without a word from the absent one. So did the twenty-third. By this
time Hartley had grown very calm, self-adjusted and resolute. He had
gone over and over again the history of their lives since marriage
bound them together, and in this history he could see nothing
hopeful as bearing on the future. He was never certain of Irene.
Things said and done in moments of thoughtlessness or excitement,
and not meant to hurt or offend, were constantly disturbing their
peace. It was clouds, and rain, and fitful sunshine all the while.
There were no long seasons of serene delight.

"Why," he said to himself, "seek to prolong this effort to blend
into one two lives that seem hopelessly antagonistic. Better stand
as far apart as the antipodes than live in perpetual strife. If I
should go to Irene, and, through concession or entreaty, win her
back again, what guarantee would I have for the future? None, none
whatever. Sooner or later we must be driven asunder by the violence
of our ungovernable passions, never to draw again together. We are
apart now, and it is well. I shall not take the first step toward a
reconciliation."

Hartley Emerson was a young man of cool purpose and strong will. For
all that, he was quick-tempered and undisciplined. It was from the
possession of these qualities that he was steadily advancing in his
profession, and securing a practice at the bar which promised to
give him a high position in the future. Persistence was another
element of his character. If he adopted any course of conduct, it
was a difficult thing to turn him aside. When he laid his hand upon
the plough, he was of those who rarely look back. Unfortunate
qualities these for a crisis in life such as now existed.

On the morning of the twenty-fourth of December, no word having come
from his wife, Emerson coolly penned the letter to Mr. Delancy which
is given in the preceding chapter, and mailed it so that it would
reach him on Christmas day. He was in earnest--sternly in
earnest--as Mr. Delancy, on reading his letter, felt him to be. The
honeymoon flight was one thing; this abandonment of a husband's
home, another thing. Emerson gave to them a different weight and
quality. Of the first act he could never think without a burning
cheek--a sense of mortification--a pang of wounded pride; and long
ere this he had made up his mind that if Irene ever left him again,
it would be for ever, so far as perpetuity depended on his action in
the case. He would never follow her nor seek to win her back.

Yes, he was in earnest. He had made his mind up for the worst, and
was acting with a desperate coolness only faintly imagined by Irene
on receipt of his letter to her father. Mr. Delancy, who understood
Emerson's character better, was not deceived. He took the
communication in its literal meaning, and felt appalled at the ruin
which impended.

Emerson passed the whole of Christmas day alone in his house. At
meal-times he went to the table and forced himself to partake
lightly of food, in order to blind the servants, whose curiosity in
regard to the absence of Mrs. Emerson was, of course, all on the
alert. After taking tea he went out.

His purpose was to call upon a friend in whom he had great
confidence, and confide to him the unhappy state of his affairs. For
an hour he walked the streets in debate on the propriety of this
course. Unable, however, to see the matter clearly, he returned home
with the secret of his domestic trouble still locked in his own
bosom.

It was past eight o'clock when he entered his dwelling. A light was
burning in one of the parlors, and he stepped into the room. After
walking for two or three times the length of the apartment, Mr.
Emerson threw himself on a sofa, a deep sigh escaping his lips as he
did so. At the same moment he heard a step in the passage, and the
rustling of a woman's garments, which caused him to start again to
his feet. In moving his eyes met the form of Irene, who advanced
toward him, and throwing her arms around his neck, sobbed,

"Dear husband! can you, will you forgive my childish folly?"

His first impulse was to push her away, and he, even grasped her
arms and attempted to draw them from his neck. She perceived this,
and clung to him more eagerly.

"Dear Hartley!" she said, "will you not speak to me?"

"Irene!" His voice was cold and deep, and as he pronounced her name
he withdrew himself from her embrace. At this she grew calm and
stepped a pace back from him.

"Irene, we are not children," he said, in the same cold, deep voice,
the tones of which were even and measured. "That time is past. Nor
foolish young lovers, who fall out and make up again twice or thrice
in a fortnight; but man and wife, with the world and its sober
realities before us."

"Oh, Hartley," exclaimed Irene, as he paused; "don't talk to me in
this way! Don't look at me so! It will kill me. I have done wrong. I
have acted like foolish child. But I am penitent. It was half in
sport that I went away, and I was so sure of seeing you at Ivy Cliff
yesterday that I told father you were coming."

"Irene, sit down." And Emerson took the hand of his wife and led her
to a sofa. Then, after closing the parlor door, he drew a chair and
seated himself directly in front of her. There was a coldness and
self-possession about him, that chilled Irene.

"It is a serious thing," he said, looking steadily in her face, "for
a wife to leave, in anger, her husband's house for that of her
father."

She tried to make some reply and moved her lips in attempted
utterance, but the organs of speech refused to perform their office.

"You left me once before in anger, and I went after you. But it was
clearly understood with myself then that if you repeated the act it
would be final in all that appertained to me; that unless you
returned, it would be a lifelong separation. You _have_ repeated the
act; and, knowing your pride and tenacity of will, I did not
anticipate your return. And so I was looking the sad, stern future
in the face as steadily as possible, and preparing to meet it as a
man conscious of right should be prepared to meet whatever trouble
lies in store for him. I went out this evening, after passing the
Christmas day alone, with the purpose of consulting an old and
discreet friend as to the wisest course of action. But the thing was
too painful to speak of yet. So I came back--and you are here!"

She looked at him steadily while he spoke, her face white as marble,
and her colorless lips drawn back from her teeth.

"Irene," he continued, "it is folly for us to keep on in the way we
have been going. I am wearied out, and you cannot be happy in a
relation that is for ever reminding you that your own will and
thought are no longer sole arbiters of action; that there is another
will and another thought that must at times be consulted, and even
obeyed. I am a man, and a husband; you a woman, and a wife,--we are
equal as to rights and duties--equal in the eyes of God; but to the
man and husband appertains a certain precedence in action; consent,
co-operation and approval, if he be a thoughtful and judicious man,
appertaining to the wife."

As Emerson spoke thus, he noticed a sign of returning warmth in her
pale face, and a dim, distant flash in her eyes. Her proud spirit
did not accept this view of their relation to each other. He went
on:

"If a wife has no confidence in her husband's manly judgment, if she
cannot even respect him, then the case is altered. She must be
understanding and will to herself; must lead both him and herself if
he be weak enough to consent. But the relation is not a true one;
and marriage, under this condition of things, is only a semblance."

"And that is your doctrine?" said Irene. There was a shade of
surprise in her voice that lingered huskily in her throat.

"That is my doctrine," was Emerson's firmly spoken answer.

Irene sighed heavily. Both were silent for some moments. At length
Irene said, lifting her hands and bringing them down with an action
of despair,

"In bonds! in bonds!"

"No, no!" Her husband replied quickly and earnestly. "Not in bonds,
but in true freedom, if you will--the freedom of reciprocal action."

"Like bat and ball," she answered, with bitterness in her tones.

"No, like heart and lungs," he returned, calmly. "Irene! dear wife!
Why misunderstand me? I have no wish to rule, and you know I have
never sought to place you in bonds. I have had only one desire, and
that is to be your husband in the highest and truest sense. But, I
am a man--you a woman. There are two wills and two understandings
that must act in the same direction. Now, in the nature of things,
the mind of one must, helped by the mind of the other to see right,
take, as a general thing, the initiative where action is concerned.
Unless this be so, constant collisions will occur. And this takes us
back to the question that lies at the basis of all order and
happiness--which of the two minds shall lead?"

"A man and his wife are equal," said Irene, firmly. The strong
individuality of her character was asserting its claims even in this
hour of severe mental pain.

"Equal in the eyes of God, as I have said before, but where action
is concerned one must take precedence of the other, for, it cannot
be, seeing that their office and duties are different, that their
judgment in the general affairs of life can be equally clear. A
man's work takes him out into the world, and throws him into sharp
collision with other men. He learns, as a consequence, to think
carefully and with deliberation, and to decide with caution, knowing
that action, based on erroneous conclusions, may ruin his prospects
in an hour. Thus, like the oak, which, grows up exposed to all
elemental changes, his judgment gains strength, while his
perceptions, constantly trained, acquire clearness. But a woman's
duties lie almost wholly within this region of strife and action,
and she remains, for the most part, in a tranquil atmosphere.
Allowing nothing for a radical difference in mental constitution,
this difference of training must give a difference of mental power.
The man's judgment in affairs generally must be superior to the
woman's, and she must acquiesce in its decisions or there can be no
right union in marriage."

"Must lose herself in him," said Irene, coldly. "Become a cypher, a
slave. That will not suit me, Hartley!" And she looked at him with
firmly compressed mouth and steady eyes.

It came to his lips to reply, "Then you had better return to your
father," but he caught the words back ere they leaped forth into
sound, and, rising, walked the floor for the space of more than five
minutes, Irene not stirring from the sofa. Pausing at length, he
said in a voice which had lost its steadiness:

"You had better go up to your room, Irene. We are not in a condition
to help each other now."

Mrs. Emerson did not answer, but, rising, left the parlor and went
as her husband had suggested. He stood still, listening, until the
sound of her steps and the rustle of her garments had died away into
silence, when he commenced slowly walking the parlor floor with his
head bent down, and continued thus, as if he had forgotten time and
place, for over an hour. Then, awakened to consciousness by a sense
of dizziness and exhaustion, he laid himself upon a sofa, and,
shutting his eyes, tried to arrest the current of his troubled
thoughts and sink into sleep and forgetfulness.




CHAPTER IX.

THE RECONCILIATION.


_FOR_ such a reception the young wife was wholly unprepared.
Suddenly her husband had put on a new character and assumed a right
of control against which her sensitive pride and native love of
freedom arose in strong rebellion. That she had done wrong in going
away she acknowledged to herself, and had acknowledged to him. But
he had met confession in a spirit so different from what was
anticipated, and showed an aspect so cold, stern, and exacting, that
she was bewildered. She did not, however, mistake the meaning of his
language. It was plain that she understood the man's position to be
one of dictation and control: we use the stronger aspect in which it
was presented to her mind. As to submission, it was not in all her
thoughts. Wrung to agony as her heart was, and appalled as she
looked, trembling and shrinking into the future, she did not yield a
moment to weakness.

Midnight found Irene alone in her chamber. She had flung herself
upon a bed when she came up from the parlor, and fallen asleep after
an hour of fruitless beating about in her mind. Awaking from a maze
of troubled dreams, she started up and gazed, half fearfully, around
the dimly-lighted room.

"Where am I?" she asked herself. Some moments elapsed before the
painful events of the past few days began to reveal themselves to
her consciousness.

"And where is Hartley?" This question followed as soon as all grew
clear. Sleep had tranquilized her state, and restored a measure of
just perception. Stepping from the bed, she went from the room and
passed silently down stairs. A light still burned in the parlor
where she had left her husband some hours before, and streamed out
through the partly opened door. She stood for some moments,
listening, but there was no sound of life within. A sudden fear
crept into her heart. Her hand shook as she laid it upon the door
and pressed it open. Stepping within, she glanced around with a
frightened air.

On the sofa lay Hartley, with his face toward the light. It was wan
and troubled, and the brows were contracted as if from intense pain.
For some moments Irene stood looking at him; but his eyes were shut
and he lay perfectly still. She drew nearer and bent down over him.
He was sleeping, but his breath came so faintly, and there was so
little motion of his chest, that the thought flashed through her
with an electric thrill that he might be dying! Only by a strong
effort of self-control did she repress a cry of fear, or keep back
her hands from clasping his neck. In what a strong tide did love
rush back upon her soul! Her heart overflowed with tenderness, was
oppressed with yearning.

"Oh, Hartley, my husband, my dear husband!" she cried out, love,
fear, grief and anguish blending wildly in her voice, as she caught
him in her arms and awoke him with a rain of tears and kisses.

"Irene! Love! Darling! What ails you? Where are we?" were the
confusedly uttered sentences of Mr. Emerson, as he started from the
sofa and, holding his young wife from him, looked into her weeping
face.

"Call me again 'love' and 'darling,' and I care not where we are!"
she answered, in tones of passionate entreaty. "Oh, Hartley, my
dear, dear husband! A desert island, with you, would be a paradise;
a paradise, without you, a weary desert! Say the words again. Call
me 'darling!'" And she let her head fall upon his bosom.

"God bless you!" he said, laying his hand upon her head. He was
awake and clearly conscious of place and position. His voice was
distinct, but tremulous and solemn. "God bless you, Irene, my wife!"

"And make me worthy of your love," she responded faintly.

"Mutually worthy of each other," said he. "Wiser--better--more
patient and forbearing. Oh, Irene," and his voice grew deep and
tender, "why may we not be to each other all that our hearts
desire?"

"We can--we must--we will!" she answered, lifting her hidden face
from his bosom and turning it up fondly to his. "God helping me, I
will be to you a better wife in the future."

"And I a more patient, loving, and forbearing husband," he replied.
"Oh that our hearts might beat together as one heart!"

For a little while Irene continued to gaze into her husband's
countenance with looks of the tenderest love, and then hid her face
on his bosom again.

And thus were they again reconciled.




CHAPTER X.

AFTER THE STORM.


_AFTER_ the storm. And they were reconciled. The clouds rolled back;
the sun came out again with his radiant smiles and genial warmth.
But was nothing broken? nothing lost? Did each flower in the garden
of love lift its head as bravely as before? In every storm of
passion something is lost. Anger is a blind fury, who tramples
ruthlessly on tenderest and holiest things. Alas for the ruin that
waits upon her footsteps!

The day that followed this night of reconciliation had many hours of
sober introversion of thought for both Emerson and his wife; hours
in which memory reproduced language, conduct and sentiments that
could not be dwelt upon without painful misgivings for the future.
They understood each other too well to make light account of things
said and done, even in anger.

In going over, as Irene did many times, the language used by her
husband on the night before, touching their relation as man and
wife, and his prerogative, she felt the old spirit of revolt
arising. She tried to let her thought fall into his rational
presentation of the question involving precedence, and even said to
herself that he was right; but pride was strong, and kept lifting
itself in her mind. She saw, most clearly, the hardest aspect of the
case. It was, in her view, command and obedience. And she knew that
submission was, for her, impossible.

On the part of Emerson, the day's sober thought left his mind in no
more hopeful condition than that of his wife. The pain suffered in
consequence of her temporary flight from home, though lessened by
her return, had not subsided. A portion of confidence in her was
lost. He felt that he had no guarantee for the future; that at any
moment, in the heat of passion, she might leave him again. He
remembered, too distinctly, her words on the night before, when he
tried to make her comprehend his view of the relation between man
and wife--"That will not suit me, Hartley." And he felt that she was
in earnest; that she would resist every effort he might make to lead
and control as a man in certain things, just as she had done from
the beginning.

In matrimonial quarrels you cannot kiss and make up again, as
children do, forgetting all the stormy past in the sunshiny present.
And this was painfully clear to both Hartley and Irene, as she,
alone in her chamber, and he, alone in his office, pondered, on that
day of reconciliation, the past and the future. Yet each resolved to
be more forbearing and less exacting; to be emulous of concession,
rather than exaction; to let love, uniting with reason, hold pride
and self-will in close submission.

Their meeting, on Hartley's return home, at his usual late hour in
the afternoon, was tender, but not full of the joyous warmth of
feeling that often showed itself. Their hearts were not light enough
for ecstasy. But they were marked in their attentions to each other,
emulous of affectionate words and actions, yielding and considerate.
And yet this mutual, almost formal, recognition of a recent state of
painful antagonism left on each mind a feeling of embarrassment,
checked words and sentences ere they came to utterance, and threw
amid their pleasant talks many intermittent pauses.

Often through the day had Mr. Emerson, as he dwelt on the unhappy
relation existing between himself and his wife, made up his mind to
renew the subject of their true position to each other, as briefly
touched upon in their meeting of the night before, and as often
changed his purpose, in fear of another rupture. Yet to him it
seemed of the first importance that this matter, as a basis of
future peace, should be settled between them, and settled at once.
If he held one view and she another, and both were sensitive,
quick-tempered and tenacious of individual freedom, fierce
antagonism might occur at any moment. He had come home inclined to
the affirmative side of the question, and many times during the
evening it was on his lips to introduce the subject. But he was so
sure that it would prove a theme of sharp discussion, that he had
not the courage to risk the consequences.

There was peace again after this conflict, but it was not, by any
means, a hopeful peace. It had no well-considered basis. The causes
which had produced a struggle were still in existence, and liable to
become active, by provocation, at any moment. No change had taken
place in the characters, dispositions, temperaments or general views
of life in either of the parties. Strife had ceased between them
only in consequence of the pain it involved. A deep conviction of
this fact so sobered the mind of Mr. Emerson, and altered, in
consequence, his manner toward Irene, that she felt its reserve and
coldness as a rebuke that chilled the warmth of her tender impulses.

And this manner did not greatly change as the days and weeks moved
onward. Memory kept too vividly in the mind of Emerson that one act,
and the danger of its repetition on some sudden provocation. He
could not feel safe and at ease with his temple of peace built close
to a slumbering volcano, which was liable at any moment to blaze
forth and bury its fair proportions in lava and ashes.

Irene did not comprehend her husband's state of mind. She felt
painfully the change in his manner, but failed in reaching the true
cause. Sometimes she attributed his coldness to resentment;
sometimes to defect of love; and sometimes to a settled
determination on his part to inflict punishment. Sometimes she spent
hours alone, weeping over these sad ruins of her peace, and
sometimes, in a spirit of revolt, she laid down for herself a line
of conduct intended to react against her husband. But something in
his calm, kind, self-reliant manner, when she looked into his face,
broke down her purpose. She was afraid of throwing herself against a
rock which, while standing immovable, might bruise her tender limbs
or extinguish life in the strong concussion.




CHAPTER XI.

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.


_BOTH_ Emerson and his wife came up from this experience changed in
themselves and toward each other. A few days had matured them beyond
what might have been looked for in as many years. Life suddenly put
on more sober hues, and the future laid off its smiles and
beckonings onward to greener fields and mountain-heights of
felicity. There was a certain air of manly self-confidence, a
firmer, more deliberate way of expressing himself on all subjects,
and an evidence of mental clearness and strength, which gave to
Irene the impression of power and superiority not wholly agreeable
to her self-love, yet awakening emotions of pride in her husband
when she contrasted him with other men. As a man among men, he was,
as he had ever been, her beau ideal; but as a husband, she felt a
daily increasing spirit of resistance and antagonism, and it
required constant watchfulness over herself to prevent this feeling
from exhibiting itself in act.

On the part of Emerson, the more he thought about this subject of
the husband's relative duties and prerogatives--thought as a man and
as a lawyer--the more strongly did he feel about it, and the more
tenacious of his assumed rights did he become. Matters which seemed
in the beginning of such light importance as scarcely to attract his
attention, now loomed up before him as things of moment. Thus, if he
spoke of their doing some particular thing in a certain way, and
Irene suggested a different way, instead of yielding to her view, he
would insist upon his own. If she tried to show him a reason why her
way was best, he would give no weight to her argument or
representation. On the other hand, it is but just to say that he
rarely opposed her independent suggestions or interfered with her
freedom; and if she had been as considerate toward him, the danger
of trouble would have been lessened.

It is the little foxes that spoil the tender grapes, and so it is
the little reactions of two spirits against each other that spoil
the tender blossoms of love and destroy the promised vintage.
Steadily, day by day, and week by week, were these light reactions
marring the happiness of our undisciplined young friends, and
destroying in them germ after germ, and bud after bud, which, if
left to growth and development, would have brought forth ripe,
luscious fruit in the later summer of their lives. Trifles, light as
air were noticed, and their importance magnified. Words, looks,
actions, insignificant in themselves, were made to represent states
of will or antagonism which really had no existence.

Unhappily for their peace, Irene had a brooding disposition. She
held in her memory utterances and actions forgotten by her husband,
and, by dwelling upon, magnified and gave them an importance to
which they were not entitled. Still more unhappily for their peace,
Irene met about this time, and became attached to, a lady of fine
intellectual attainments and fascinating manners, who was an
extremist in opinion on the subject of sexual equality. She was
married, but to a man greatly her inferior, though possessing some
literary talent, which he managed to turn to better account than she
did her finer powers. He had been attracted by her brilliant
qualities, and in approaching her scorched his wings, and ever after
lay at her feet. She had no very high respect for him, but found a
husband on many accounts a convenient thing, and so held on to the
appendage. If he had been man enough to remain silent on the themes
she was so fond of discussing on all occasions, people of common
sense and common perception would have respected him for what he was
worth. But he gloried in his bondage, and rattled his chains as
gleefully as if he were discoursing sweet music. What she announced
oracularly, he attempted to demonstrate by bald and feeble
arguments. He was the false understanding to her perverted will.

The name of this lady was Mrs. Talbot. Irene met her soon after her
marriage and removal to New York, and was charmed with her from the
beginning. Mr. Emerson, on the contrary, liked neither her nor her
sentiments, and considered her a dangerous friend for his wife. He
expressed himself freely in regard to her at the commencement of the
intimacy; but Irene took her part so warmly, and used such strong
language in her favor, that Emerson deemed it wisest not to create
new sentiments in her favor out of opposition to himself.

Within a week from that memorable Christmas day on which Irene came
back from Ivy Cliff, Mrs. Talbot, who had taken a fancy to the
spirited, independent, undisciplined wife of Emerson, called in to
see her new friend. Irene received her cordially. She was, in fact,
of all her acquaintances, the one she most desired to meet.

"I'm right glad you thought of making me a call," said Mrs. Emerson,
as they sat down together. "I've felt as dull all the morning as an
anchorite."

"You dull!" Mrs. Talbot affected surprise, as she glanced round the
tasteful room in which they were sitting. "What is there to cloud
your mind? With such a home and such a husband as you possess life
ought to be one long, bright holiday."

"Good things in their way," replied Mrs. Emerson. "But not
everything."

She said this in a kind of thoughtless deference to Mrs. Talbot's
known views on the subject of homes and husbands, which she had not
hesitated to call women's prisons and women's jailers.

"Indeed! And have you made that discovery?"

Mrs. Talbot laughed a low, gurgling sort of laugh, leaning, at the
same time, in a confidential kind of way, closer to Mrs. Emerson.

"Discovery!"

"Yes."

"It is no discovery," said Mrs. Emerson. "The fact is self-evident.
There is much that a woman needs for happiness beside a home and a
husband."

"Right, my young friend, right!" Mrs. Talbot's manner grew earnest.
"No truer words were ever spoken. Yes--yes--a woman needs a great
deal more than these to fill the measure of her happiness; and it is
through the attempt to restrict and limit her to such poor
substitutes for a world-wide range and freedom that she has been so
dwarfed in mental stature, and made the unhappy creature and slave
of man's hard ambition and indomitable love of power. There were
Amazons of old--as the early Greeks knew to their cost--strong,
self-reliant, courageous women, who acknowledged no human
superiority. Is the Amazonian spirit dead in the earth? Not so! It
is alive, and clothing itself with will, power and persistence.
Already it is grasping the rein, and the mettled steed stands
impatient to feel the rider's impulse in the saddle. The cycle of
woman's degradation and humiliation is completed. A new era in the
world's social history has dawned for her, and the mountain-tops are
golden with the coming day."

Irene listened with delight and even enthusiasm to these sentiments,
uttered with ardor and eloquence.

"It is not woman's fault, taking her in the aggregate, that she is
so weak in body and mind, and such a passive slave to man's will,"
continued Mrs. Talbot. "In the retrocession of races toward
barbarism mere muscle, in which alone man is superior to woman,
prevailed. Physical strength set itself up as master. Might made
right. And so unhappy woman was degraded below man, and held to the
earth, until nearly all independent life has been crushed out of
her. As civilization has lifted nation after nation out of the dark
depths of barbarism, the condition of woman physically has been
improved. For the sake of his children, if from no better motive,
man has come to treat his wife with a more considerate kindness. If
she is still but the hewer of his wood and the drawer of his water,
he has, in many cases, elevated her to the position of dictatress in
these humble affairs. He allows her 'help!' But, mentally and
socially, he continues to degrade her. In law she is scarcely
recognized, except as a criminal. She is punished if she does wrong,
but has no legal protection in her rights as an independent human
being. She is only man's shadow. The public opinion that affects her
is made by him. The earliest literature of a country is man's
expression; and in this man's view of woman is always apparent. The
sentiment is repeated generation after generation, and age after
age, until the barbarous idea comes down, scarcely questioned, to
the days of high civilization, culture and refinement.

"Here, my young friend, you have the simple story of woman's
degradation in this age of the world. Now, so long as she submits,
man will hold her in fetters. Power and dominion are sweet. If a man
cannot govern a state, he will be content to govern a household--but
govern he will, if he can find anywhere submissive subjects."

"He is born a tyrant; that I have always felt," said Mrs. Emerson.
"You see it in a family of sisters and brothers. The boys always
attempt to rule their sisters, and if the latter do not submit, then
comes discord and contention."

"I have seen this, in hundreds of instances," replied Mrs. Talbot.
"It was fully illustrated in my own case. I had two brothers, who
undertook to exercise their love of domineering on me. But they did
not find a passive subject--no, not by any means. I was never
obedient to their will, for I had one of my own. We made the house
often a bedlam for our poor mother; but I never gave way--no, not
for an instant, come what might. I had different stuff in me from
that of common girls, and in time the boys were glad to let me
alone."

"Are your brothers living?" asked Mrs. Emerson.

"Yes. One resides in New York, and the other in Boston. One is a
merchant, the other a physician."

"How was it as you grew older?"

"About the same. They are like nearly all men--despisers of woman's
intellect."

Irene sighed, and, letting her eyes fall to the floor, sat lost in
thought for some moments. The suggestions of her friend were not
producing agreeable states of mind.

"They reject the doctrine of an equality in the sexes?" said Mrs.
Emerson.

"Of course. All men do that," replied Mrs. Talbot.

"Your husband among the rest?"

"Talbot? Oh, he's well enough in his way!" The lady spoke lightly,
tossing her head in a manner that involved both indifference and
contempt. "I never take him into account when discussing these
matters. That point was settled between us long and long ago. We jog
on without trouble. Talbot thinks as I do about the women--or
pretends that he does, which is all the same."

"A rare exception to the general run of husbands," said Irene,
thinking at the same time how immeasurably superior Mr. Emerson was
to this weakling, and despising him in her heart for submitting to
be ruled by a woman. Thus nature and true perception spoke in her,
even while she was seeking to blind herself by false reasonings.

"Yes, he's a rare exception; and it's well for us both that it is
so. If he were like your husband, for instance, one of us would have
been before the legislature for a divorce within twelve months of
our marriage night."

"Like my husband! What do you mean?" Mrs. Emerson drew herself up,
with half real and half affected surprise.

"Oh, he's one of your men who have positive qualities about
them--strong in intellect and will."

Irene felt pleased with the compliment bestowed upon her husband.

"But wrong in his ideas of woman."

"How do you know?" asked Irene.

"How do I know? As I know all men with whom I come in contact. I
probe them."

"And you have probed my husband?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And do not regard him as sound on this subject?"

"No sounder than other men of his class. He regards woman as man's
inferior."

"I think you state the case too strongly," said Mrs. Emerson, a red
spot burning on her cheek. "He thinks them mentally different."

"Of course he does."

"But not different as to superiority and inferiority," replied
Irene.

"Mere hair-splitting, my child. If they are mentally different, one
must be more highly organized than the other, and of course,
superior. Mr. Emerson thinks a man's rational powers stronger than a
woman's, and that, therefore, he must direct in affairs generally,
and she follow his lead. I know; I've talked with and drawn him out
on this subject."

Mrs. Emerson sighed again faintly, while her eyes dropped from the
face of her visitor and sunk to the floor. A shadow was falling on
her spirit--a weight coming down with a gradually increasing
pressure upon her heart. She remembered the night of her return from
Ivy Cliff and the language then used by her husband on this very
subject, which was mainly in agreement with the range of opinions
attributed to him by Mrs. Talbot.

"Marriage, to a spirited woman," she remarked, in a pensive
undertone, "is a doubtful experiment."

"Always," returned her friend. "As woman stands now in the estimate
of man, her chances for happiness are almost wholly on the side of
old-maidism. Still, freedom is the price of struggle and combat; and
woman will first have to show, in actual strife, that she is the
equal of her present lord."

"Then you would turn every home into a battlefield?" said Mrs.
Emerson.

"Every home in which there is a tyrant and an oppressor," was the
prompt answer. "Many fair lands, in all ages, have been trampled
down ruthlessly by the iron feet of war; and that were better, as
the price of freedom, than slavery."

Irene sighed again, and was again silent.

"What," she asked, "if the oppressor is so much stronger than the
oppressed that successful resistance is impossible? that with every
struggle the links of the chain that binds her sink deeper into her
quivering flesh?"

"Every age and every land have seen noble martyrs in the cause of
freedom. It is better to die for liberty than live an ignoble
slave," answered the tempter.

"And I will die a free woman." This Irene said in her heart.




CHAPTER XII.

IN BONDS.


_SENTIMENTS_ like these, coming to Irene as they did while she was
yet chafing under a recent collision with her husband, and while the
question of submission was yet an open one, were near proving a
quick-match to a slumbering mine in her spirit, and had not her
husband been in a more passive state than usual, there might have
been an explosion which would have driven them asunder with such
terrific force that reunion must have been next to impossible.

It would have been well if their effects had died with the passing
away of that immediate danger. But as we think so we incline to act.
Our sentiments are our governors; and of all imperious tyrants,
false sentiments are the most ruthless. The beautiful, the true, the
good they trample out of the heart with a fiery malignity that knows
no touch of pity; for the false is the bitter enemy of the true and
makes with it no terms of amity.

The coldness which had followed their reconciliation might have
gradually given way before the warmth of genuine love, if Irene had
been left to the counsels of her own heart; if there had been no
enemy to her peace, like Mrs. Talbot, to throw in wild, vague
thoughts of oppression and freedom among the half-developed opinions
which were forming in her mind. As it was, a jealous scrutiny of
words and actions took the place of that tender confidence which was
coming back to Irene's heart, and she became watchfully on the
alert; not, as she might have been, lovingly ministrant.

Only a few days were permitted to elapse after the call of this
unsafe friend before Irene returned the visit, and spent two hours
with her, conning over the subject of woman's rights and woman's
wrongs. Mrs. Talbot introduced her to writers on the vexed question,
who had touched the theme with argument, sarcasm, invective and
bold, brilliant, specious generalities; read to her from their
books; commented on their deductions, and uttered sentiments on the
subject of reform and resistance as radical as the most extreme.

"We must agitate--we must act--we must do good deeds of valor and
self-sacrifice for our sex," she said, in her enthusiastic way.
"Every woman, whether of high or low condition, of humble powers or
vigorous intellect, has a duty to perform, and she is false to the
honor and rights of her sex if she do not array herself on the side
of freedom. You have great responsibilities resting upon you, my
young friend. I say it soberly, even solemnly. Responsibilities
which may not be disregarded without evil consequences to yourself
and others. You are young, clear-thoughted and resolute--have will,
purpose and endurance. You are married to a young man destined, I
think, to make his mark in the world; but, as I have said before, a
false education has given him erroneous ideas on this great and
important subject. Now what is your duty?"

The lady paused as if for an answer.

"What is your duty, my dear young friend?" she repeated.

"I will answer for you," she continued. "Your duty is to be true to
yourself and to your sisters in bonds."

"In bonds! _I_ in bonds!" Mrs. Talbot touched her to the quick.

"Are you a free woman?" The inquiry was calmly made.

Irene started to the floor and moved across the room, then turned
and came back again. Her cheeks burned and her eyes flashed. She
stood before Mrs. Talbot and looked at her steadily.

"The question has disturbed you?" said the lady.

"It has," was the brief answer.

"Why should it disturb you?"

Irene did not answer.

"I can tell you."

"Say on."

"You are in bonds, and feel the fetters."

"Mrs. Talbot!"

"It is so, my poor child, and you know it as well as I do. From the
beginning of our acquaintance I have seen this; and more than once,
in our various conversations, you have admitted the fact."

"I?"

"Yes, you."

Irene let her thoughts run back through the sentiments and opinions
which she had permitted herself to utter in the presence of her
friend, to see if she had so fully betrayed herself. She could not
recall the distinct language, but it was plain that Mrs. Talbot had
her secret, and therefore reserve on the subject was useless.

"Well," she said, after standing for some time before Mrs. Talbot,
"if I am in bonds, it is not because I do not worship freedom."

"I know that," was the quickly-spoken answer. "And it is because I
wish to see you a free woman that I point to your bonds. Now is the
time to break them--now, before years have increased their
strength--now, before habit has made tyranny a part of your
husband's nature. He is your ruler, because the social sentiment is
in favor of manly domination. There is hope for you now, and now
only. You must begin the work of reaction while both are young. Let
your husband understand, from this time, that you are his equal. It
may go a little hard at first. He will, without doubt, hold on to
the reins, for power is sweet; but if there be true love for you in
his heart, he will yield in the struggle, and make you his companion
and equal, as you should be. If his love be not genuine, why--"

She checked herself. It might be going a step too far with her young
friend to utter the thought that was coming to her lips. Irene did
not question her as to what more she was about to say. There was
stimulus enough in the words already spoken. She felt all the
strength of her nature rising into opposition.

"Yes, I will be free," she said in her heart. "I will be his equal,
not his slave."

"It may cost you some pain in the beginning," resumed the tempter.

"I am not afraid of pain," said Irene.

"A brave heart spoke there. I wish we had more on our side with the
stuff you are made of. There would be hope of a speedier reform than
is now promised."

"Heaven send the reform right early! It cannot come a day too soon."
Irene spoke with rising ardor.

"It will be our own fault," said Mrs. Talbot, "if we longer bow our
necks to the yoke or move obedient to our task-masters. Let us lay
the axe to the very root of this evil and hew it down."

"Even if we are crushed by the tree in falling," responded Irene, in
the spirit of a martyr.

From this interview our wrong-directed young friend went home with
more clearly defined purposes touching her conduct toward her
husband than she had hitherto entertained. She saw him in a new
aspect, and in a character more definitely outlined. He loomed up in
more colossal proportions, and put on sterner features. All
disguises were thrown away, and he stood forth, not a loving
husband, but the tyrant of her home. Weak, jealous, passion-tost
child! how this strong, self-willed, false woman of the world had
bewildered her thoughts, and pushed her forth into an arena of
strife, where she could only beat about blindly, and hurt herself
and others, yet accomplish no good.

From her interview with Mrs. Talbot, Irene went home, bearing more
distinct ideas of resistance in her mind. In this great crisis of
her life she felt that she needed just such a friend, who could give
direction to her striving spirit, and clothe for her in thoughts the
native impulses that she knew only as a love of freedom. She
believed now that she understood herself better than before, and
comprehended more clearly her duties and responsibilities.

It was in this mood of mind that she met her husband when he
returned in the afternoon from his office. Happily for them, he was
in a quiet, non-resistant state, and in a special good-humor with
himself and the world. Professional matters had shaped themselves to
his wishes, and left his mind at peace. Irene had, in consequence,
everything pretty much her own way. Hartley did not fail to notice a
certain sharpness of manner about her, and a certain spiciness of
sentiment when the subject of their intermittent talks verged on
themes relating to women; but he felt no inclination whatever for
argument or opposition, and so her arrows struck a polished shield,
and went gracefully and harmlessly aside.

"Shall we go and have a merry laugh with Matthews to-night?" said
Hartley, as they sat at the tea-table. "I feel just in the humor."

"No, I thank you," replied Irene, curtly. "I don't incline to the
laughing mood, just now."

"Laughing is contagious," suggested Hartley.

"I shall not take the infection to-night." And she balanced her
little head with the perpendicularity of a plumb-line.

"Can't I persuade you?" He was in a real good-humor, and smiled as
he said this.

"No, sir. You may waive both argument and persuasion. I am in
earnest."

"And when a woman is in earnest you might as well essay to move the
Pillars of Hercules."

"You might as well in my case," answered Irene, without any
softening of tone or features.

"Then I shall not attempt, after a hard day's work, a task so
difficult. I am in a mood for rest and quiet," said the young
husband.

"Perhaps," he resumed, after a little pause, "you may feel somewhat
musical. There is to be a vocal and instrumental concert to-night.
What say you to going there? I think I could enjoy some good
singing, mightily."

Irene closed her lips firmly, and shook her head.

"Not musically inclined this evening?"

"No," she replied.

"Got a regular stay-at-home feeling?"

"Yes."

"Enough," said Hartley, with unshadowed good-humor, "we will stay at
home."

And he sung a snatch of the familiar song--"There's no place like
home," rising, as he did so, from the table, and offering Irene his
arm. She could do no less than accept the courtesy, and so they went
up to their cozy sitting-room arm-in-arm--he chatty, and she almost
silent.

"What's the matter, petty?" he asked, in a fond way, after trying
for some time, but in vain, to draw her out into pleasant
conversation. "Ain't you well to-night?"

Now, so far as her bodily state was concerned, Irene never felt
better in her life. So she could not plead indisposition.

"I feel well," she replied, glancing up into her husband's face in a
cold, embarrassed kind of way.

"Then your looks belie your condition--that's all. If it isn't the
body, it must be the mind. What's gone wrong, darling?"

The tenderness in Hartley's tones was genuine, and the heart of
Irene leaped to his voice with a responsive throe. But was he not
her master and tyrant? How that thought chilled the sweet impulse!

"Nothing wrong," she answered, with a sadness of tone which she was
unable to conceal. "But I feel dull, and cannot help it."

"You should have gone with me to laugh with Matthews. He would have
shaken all these cobwebs from your brain. Come! it is not yet too
late."

But the rebel spirit was in her heart; and to have acceded to he
husband's wishes would have been to submit herself to control.

"You must excuse me," she replied. "I feel as if home were the
better place for me to-night."

An impatient answer was on her tongue; but she checked its
utterance, and spoke from a better spirit.

Not even as a lover had Hartley shown more considerate tenderness
than marked all his conduct toward Irene this evening. His mind was
in a clear-seeing region, and his feelings tranquil. The sphere of
her antagonism failed to reach him. He did not understand the
meaning of her opposition to his wishes, and so pride, self-love and
self-will remained quiescent. How peacefully unconscious was he of
the fact that his feet were standing over a mine, and that a single
spark of passion struck from him would have sprung that mine in
fierce explosion! He read to Irene from a volume which he knew to be
a favorite; talked to her about Ivy Cliff and her father; suggested
an early visit to the pleasant old river home; and thus charmed away
the evil spirits which had found a lodgment in her bosom.

But how different it might have been!




CHAPTER XIII.

THE REFORMERS.


_SOCIAL_ theories that favor our passions, peculiarities, defects of
character or weaknesses are readily adopted, and, with minds of an
ardent temper, often become hobbies. There is a class of persons who
are never content with riding their own hobbies; they must have
others mount with them. All the world is going wrong because it
moves past them--trotting, pacing or galloping, as it may be, upon
its own hobbies. And so they try to arrest this movement or that,
or, gathering a company of aimless people, they galvanize them with
their own wild purposes, and start them forth into the world on
Quixotic errands.

These persons are never content to wait for the slow changes that
are included in all orderly developments. Because a thing seems
right to them in the abstract, it must be done now. They cannot wait
for old things to pass away, as preliminary to the inauguration of
what is new.

"If I had the power," we have heard one of this class say, "evil and
sorrow and pain should cease from the earth in a moment." And in
saying this the thought was not concealed that God had this power,
but failed to exercise it. With them no questions of expediency, no
regard for time-endowed prejudices, no weak spirit of waiting, no
looking for the fullness of time could have any influence. What they
willed to be done must be done now; and they were impatient and
angry at every one who stood in their way or opposed their theories.

In most cases, you will find these "reformers," as they generally
style themselves, governed more by a love of ruling and influencing
others than by a spirit of humanity. They are one-sided people, and
can only see one side of a subject in clear light. It matters little
to them what is destroyed, so that they can build. If they possess
the gift of language, either as writers or talkers--have wit,
brilliancy and sarcasm--they make disciples of the less gifted, and
influence larger or smaller circles of men and women. Flattered by
this homage to their talents, they grow more ardent in the cause
which they have espoused, and see, or affect to see, little else of
any importance in the world. They do some good and much harm. Good,
in drawing general attention to social evils that need
reforming--evil, in causing weak people to forget common duties in
their ambition to set the world right.

There is always danger in breaking suddenly away from the regular
progression of things and taking the lead in some new and
antagonistic movement. Such things must and will be; but they who
set up for social reformers must be men and women of pure hearts,
clear minds and the broadest human sympathies. They must be lovers
of their kind, not lovers of themselves; brave as patriots, not as
soldiers of fortune who seek for booty and renown.

Not many of these true reformers--all honor to them!--are found
among the noisy coteries that infest the land and turn so many
foolish people away from real duties.

One of the dangers attendant on association with the class to which
we refer lies in the fact that they draw around them certain
free-thinking, sensual personages, of no very stable morality, who
are ready for anything that gives excitement to their morbid
conditions of mind. Social disasters, of the saddest kind, are
constantly occurring through this cause. Men and women become at
first unsettled in their opinions, then unsettled in their conduct,
and finally throw off all virtuous restraint.

Mrs. Talbot, the new friend of Mrs. Emerson, belonged to the better
sort of reformers in one respect. She was a pure-minded woman; but
this did not keep her out of the circle of those who were of freer
thought and action. Being an extremist on the subject of woman's
social position, she met and assimilated with others on the basis of
a common sentiment. This threw her in contact with many from whom
she would have shrunk with instinctive aversion had she known their
true quality. Still, the evil to her was a gradual wearing away, by
the power of steady attrition, of old, true, conservative ideas in
regard to the binding force of marriage. There was always a great
deal said on this subject, in a light way, by persons for whose
opinions on other subjects she had the highest respect, and this had
its influence. Insensibly her views and feelings changed, until she
found herself, in some cases, the advocate of sentiments that once
would have been rejected with instinctive repugnance.

This was the woman who was about acquiring a strong influence over
the undisciplined, self-willed and too self-reliant young wife of
Hartley Emerson; and this was the class of personages among whom her
dangerous friend was about introducing her. At the house of Mrs.
Talbot, where Irene became a frequent visitor, she met a great many
brilliant, talented and fascinating people, of whom she often spoke
to her husband, for she was too independent to have any
concealments. She knew that he did no like Mrs. Talbot, but this
rather inclined her to a favorable estimation, and really led to a
more frequent intercourse than would otherwise have been the case.

Once a week Mrs. Talbot held a kind of conversazione, at which
brilliant people and people with hobbies met to hear themselves
talk. Mr. and Mrs. Emerson had a standing invitation to be present
at these reunions, and, as Irene wished to go, her husband saw it
best not to interpose obstacles. Besides, as he knew that she went
to Mrs. Talbot's often in the day-time, and met a good many people
there, he wished to see for himself who they were, and judge for
himself as to their quality. Of the men who frequented the parlors
of Mrs. Talbot, the larger number had some prefix to their names, as
Professor, Doctor, Major, or Colonel. Most of the ladies were of a
decidedly literary turn--some had written books, some were magazine
contributors, one was a physician, and one a public lecturer.
Nothing against them in all this, but much to their honor if their
talents and acquirements were used for the common good.

The themes of conversation at these weekly gatherings were varied,
but social relations and social reform were in most cases the
leading topics. Two or three evenings at Mrs. Talbot's were enough
to satisfy Mr. Emerson that the people who met there were not of a
character to exercise a good influence upon his wife. But how was he
to keep her from associations that evidently presented strong
attractions? Direct opposition he feared to make, for the experience
of a few months had been sufficient to show him that she would
resist all attempts on his part to exercise a controlling influence.

He tried at first to keep her away by feigning slight indisposition,
or weariness, or disinclination to go out, and so lead her to
exercise some self-denial for his sake. But her mind was too firmly
bent on going to be turned so easily from its purpose; she did not
consider trifles like these of sufficient importance to interfere
with the pleasures of an evening at one of Mrs. Talbot's
conversaziones. Mr. Emerson felt hurt at his wife's plain disregard
of his comfort and wishes, and said within himself, with bitterness
of feeling, that she was heartless.

One day, at dinner-time, he said to her--

"I shall not be able to go to Mrs. Talbot's to-night."

"Why?" Irene looked at her husband in surprise, and with a shade of
disappointment on her countenance.

"I have business of importance with a gentleman who resides in
Brooklyn, and have promised to meet him at his house this evening."

"You might call for me on your return," said Irene.

"The time of my return will be uncertain. I cannot now tell how late
I may be detained in Brooklyn."

"I'm sorry." And Irene bent down her eyes in a thoughtful way. "I
promised Mrs. Talbot to be there to-night," she added.

"Mrs. Talbot will excuse you when she knows why you were absent."

"I don't know about that," said Irene.

"She must be a very unreasonable woman," remarked Emerson.

"That doesn't follow. You could take me there, and Mrs. Talbot find
me an escort home."

"Who?" Emerson knit his brows and glanced sharply at his wife. The
suggestion struck him unpleasantly.

"Major Willard, for instance;" and she smiled in a half-amused,
half-mischievous way.

"You cannot be in earnest, surely?" said Emerson.

"Why not?" queried his wife, looking at her husband with calm,
searching eyes.

"You would not, in the first place, be present there, unaccompanied
by your husband; and, in the second place, I hardly think my wife
would be seen in the street, at night, on the arm of Major Willard."

Mr. Emerson spoke like a man who was in earnest.

"Do you know anything wrong of Major Willard?" asked Irene.

"I know nothing about him, right or wrong," was replied. "But, if I
have any skill in reading men, he is very far from being a fine
specimen."

"Why, Hartley! You have let some prejudice come in to warp your
estimation."

"No. I have mixed some with men, and, though my opportunity for
observation has not been large, I have met two or three of your
Major Willards. They are polished and attractive on the surface, but
unprincipled and corrupt."

"I cannot believe this of Major Willard," said Irene.

"It might be safer for you to believe it," replied Hartley.

"Safer! I don't understand you! You talk in riddles? How safer?"

Irene showed some irritation.

"Safer as to your good name," replied her husband.

"My good name is in my own keeping," said the young wife, proudly.

"Then, for Heaven's sake, remain its safe custodian," replied
Emerson. "Don't let even the shadow of a man like Major Willard fall
upon it."

"I am sorry to see you so prejudiced," said Irene, coldly; "and
sorry, still further, that you have so poor an opinion of your
wife."

"You misapprehend me," returned Hartley. "I am neither prejudiced
nor suspicious. But seeing danger in your way, as a prudent man I
lift a voice of warning. I am out in the world more than you are,
and see more of its worst side. My profession naturally opens to me
doors of observation that are shut to many. I see the inside of
character, where others look only upon the fair outside."

"And so learn to be suspicious of everybody," said Irene.

"No; only to read indices that to many others are unintelligible."

"I must learn to read them also."

"It would be well if your sex and place in the world gave the right
opportunity," replied Hartley.

"Truly said. And that touches the main question. Women, immured as
they now are, and never suffered to go out into the world unless
guarded by husband, brother or discreet managing friend, will
continue as weak and undiscriminating as the great mass of them now
are. But, so far as I am concerned, this system is destined to
change. I must be permitted a larger liberty, and opportunities for
independent observation. I wish to read character for myself, and
make up my own mind in regard to the people I meet."

"I am only sorry," rejoined her husband, "that your first effort at
reading character and making up independent opinions in regard to
men and principles had not found scope in another direction. I am
afraid that, in trying to get close enough to the people you meet at
Mrs. Talbot's for accurate observation, you will draw so near to
dangerous fires as to scorch your garments."

"Complimentary to Mrs. Talbot!"

"The remark simply gives you my estimate of some of her favored
visitors."

"And complimentary to your wife," added Irene.

"My wife," said Hartley, in a serious voice, "is, like myself, young
and inexperienced, and should be particularly cautious in regard to
all new acquaintances--men or women--particularly if they be some
years her senior, and particularly if they show any marked desire to
cultivate her acquaintance. People with a large worldly experience,
like most of those we have met at Mrs. Talbot's, take you and I at
disadvantage. They read us through at a single sitting, while it may
take us months, even years, to penetrate the disguises they know so
well how to assume."

"Nearly all of which, touching the pleasant people we meet at Mrs.
Talbot's, is assumed," replied Irene, not at all moved by her
husband's earnestness.

"You may learn to your sorrow, when the knowledge comes too late,"
he responded, "that even more than I have assumed is true."

"I am not in fear of the sorrow," was answered lightly.

As Irene, against all argument, persuasion and remonstrance on the
part of her husband, persisted in her determination to go to Mrs.
Talbot's, he engaged a carriage to take her there and to call for
her at eleven o'clock.

"Come away alone," he said, with impressive earnestness, as he
parted from her. "Don't let any courteous offer induce you to accept
an attendant when you return home."




CHAPTER XIV.

A STARTLING EXPERIENCE.


_MRS. EMERSON_ did not feel altogether comfortable in mind as she
rode away from her door alone. She was going unattended by her
husband, and against his warmly-spoken remonstrance, to pass an
evening with people of whom she knew but little, and against whom he
had strong prejudices.

"It were better to have remained at home," she said to herself more
than once before her arrival at Mrs. Talbot's. The marked attentions
she received, as well from Mrs. Talbot as from several of her
guests, soon brought her spirits up to the old elevation. Among
those who seemed most attracted by her was Major Willard, to whom
reference has already been made.

"Where is your husband?" was almost his first inquiry on meeting
her. "I do not see him in the room."

"He had to meet a gentleman on business over in Brooklyn this
evening," replied Irene.

"Ah, business!" said the major, with a shrug, a movement of the
eyebrows and a motion in the corners of his mouth which were not
intelligible signs to Mrs. Emerson. That they meant something more
than he was prepared to utter in words, she was satisfied, but
whether of favorable or unfavorable import touching her absent
husband, she could not tell. The impression on her mind was not
agreeable, and she could not help remembering what Hartley had said
about the major.

"I notice," remarked the latter, "that we have several ladies here
who come usually without their husbands. Gentlemen are not always
attracted by the feast of reason and the flow of soul. They require
something more substantial. Oysters and terrapin are nearer to their
fancy."

"Not more to my husband's fancy," replied Mrs. Emerson, in a tone of
vindication, as well as rebuke at such freedom of speech.

"Beg your pardon a thousand times, madam!" returned Major Willard,
"if I have even seemed to speak lightly of one who holds the honored
position of your husband. Nothing could have been farther from my
thought. I was only trifling."

Mrs. Emerson smiled her forgiveness, and the major became more
polite and attentive than before. But his attentions were not wholly
agreeable. Something in the expression of his eyes as he looked at
her produced an unpleasant repulsion. She was constantly remembering
some of the cautions spoken by Hartley in reference to this man, and
she wished scores of times that he would turn his attentions to some
one else. But the major seemed to have no eyes for any other lady in
the room.

In spite of the innate repulsion to which we have referred, Mrs.
Emerson was flattered by the polished major's devotion of himself
almost wholly to her during the evening, and she could do no less in
return than make herself as agreeable as possible.

At eleven o'clock she had notice that her carriage was at the door.
The major was by, and heard the communication. So, when she came
down from the dressing-room, he was waiting for her in the hall,
ready cloaked and gloved.

"No, Major Willard, I thank you," she said, on his making a movement
to accompany her. She spoke very positively.

"I cannot see you go home unattended." And the major bowed with
graceful politeness.

"Oh no," said Mrs. Talbot. "You must not leave my house alone.
Major, I shall expect you to attend my young friend."

It was in vain that Mrs. Emerson objected and remonstrated, the
gallant major would listen to nothing; and so, perforce, she had to
yield. After handing her into the carriage, he spoke a word or two
in an undertone to the driver, and then entering, took his place by
her side.

Mrs. Emerson felt strangely uncomfortable and embarrassed, and
shrunk as far from her companion as the narrow space they occupied
would permit; while he, it seemed to her, approached as she receded.
There was a different tone in his voice when he spoke as the
carriage moved away from any she had noticed heretofore. He drew his
face near to hers in speaking, but the rattling of the wheels made
hearing difficult. He had, during the evening, referred to a star
actress then occupying public attention, of whom some scandalous
things had been said, and declared his belief in her innocence. To
Mrs. Emerson's surprise--almost disgust--his first remark after they
were seated in the carriage was about this actress. Irene did not
respond to his remark.

"Did you ever meet her in private circles?" he next inquired.

"No, sir," she answered, coldly.

"I have had that pleasure," said Major Willard.

There was no responsive word.

"She is a most fascinating woman," continued the major. "That
Juno-like beauty which so distinguishes her on the stage scarcely
shows itself in the drawing-room. On the stage she is queenly--in
private, soft, voluptuous and winning as a houri. I don't wonder
that she has crowds of admirers."

The major's face was close to that of his companion, who felt a wild
sense of repugnance, so strong as to be almost suffocating. The
carriage bounded as the wheels struck an inequality in the street,
throwing them together with a slight concussion. The major laid his
hand upon that of Mrs. Emerson, as if to support her. But she
instantly withdrew the hand he had presumed to touch. He attempted
the same familiarity again, but she placed both hands beyond the
possibility of accidental or designed contact with his, and shrank
still closer into the corner of the carriage, while her heart
fluttered and a tremor ran through her frame.

Major Willard spoke again of the actress, but Mrs. Emerson made no
reply.

"Where are we going?" she asked, after the lapse of some ten
minutes, glancing from the window and seeing, instead of the tall
rows of stately houses which lined the streets along the whole
distance between Mrs. Talbot's residence and her own house,
mean-looking tenements.

"The driver knows his route, I presume," was answered.

"This is not the way, I am sure," said Mrs. Emerson, a slight quiver
of alarm in her voice.

"Our drivers know the shortest cuts," replied the major, "and these
do not always lead through the most attractive quarters of the
town."

Mrs. Emerson shrunk back again in her seat and was silent. Her heart
was throbbing with a vague fear. Suddenly the carriage stopped and
the driver alighted.

"This is not my home," said Mrs. Emerson, as the driver opened the
door, and the major stepped out upon the pavement.

"Oh, yes. This is No. 240 L---- street. Yes, ma'am," added the
driver, "this is the number that the gentleman told me."

"What gentleman?" asked Mrs. Emerson.

"This gentleman, if you please, ma'am."

"Drive me home instantly, or this may cost you dear!" said Mrs.
Emerson, in as stern a voice as surprise and fear would permit her
to assume.

"Madam--" Major Willard commenced speaking.

"Silence, sir! Shut the door, driver, and take me home instantly!"

The major made a movement as if he were about to enter the carriage,
when Mrs. Emerson said, in a low, steady, threatening voice--

"At your peril, remain outside! Driver, shut the door. If you permit
that man to enter, my husband will hold you to a strict account."

"Stand back!" exclaimed the driver, in a resolute voice.

But the major was not to be put off in this way. He did not move
from the open door of the carriage. In the next moment the driver's
vigorous arm had hurled him across the pavement. The door was shut,
the box mounted and the carriage whirled away, before the astonished
man could rise, half stunned, from the place where he fell. A few
low, bitter, impotent curses fell from his lips, and then he walked
slowly away, muttering threats of vengeance.

It was nearly twelve o'clock when Irene reached home.

"You are late," said her husband, as she came in.

"Yes," she replied, "later than I intended."

"What's the matter?" he inquired, looking at her narrowly.

"Why do you ask?" She tried to put on an air of indifference.

"You look pale and your voice is disturbed."

"The driver went through parts of the town in returning that made me
feel nervous, as I thought of my lonely and unprotected situation."

"Why did he do that?"

"It wasn't to make the way shorter, for the directest route would
have brought me home ten minutes ago. I declare! The fellow's
conduct made me right nervous. I thought a dozen improbable things."

"It is the last time I will employ him," said Hartley. "How dare he
go a single block away from a direct course, at this late hour?" He
spoke with rising indignation.

At first, Irene resolved to inform her husband of Major Willard's
conduct, but it will be seen by this conversation that she had
changed her mind, at least for the present. Two or three things
caused her to hesitate until she could turn the matter over in her
thoughts more carefully. Pride had its influence. She did not care
to admit that she had been in error and Hartley right as to Major
Willard. But there was a more sober aspect of the case. Hartley was
excitable, brave and strong-willed. She feared the consequences that
might follow if he were informed of Major Willard's outrageous
conduct. A personal collision she saw to be almost inevitable in
this event. Mortifying publicity, if not the shedding of blood,
would ensue.

So, for the present at least, she resolved to keep her own secret,
and evaded the close queries of her husband, who was considerably
disturbed by the alleged conduct of the driver.

One good result followed this rather startling experience. Irene
said no more about attending the conversaziones of Mrs. Talbot. She
did not care to meet Major Willard again, and as he was a regular
visitor at Mrs. Talbot's, she couldn't go there without encountering
him. Her absence on the next social evening was remarked by her new
friend, who called on her the next day.

"I didn't see you last night," said the agreeable Mrs. Talbot.

"No, I remained at home," replied Mrs. Emerson, the smile with which
she had received her friend fading partly away.

"Not indisposed, I hope?"

"No."

"But your husband was! Talk it right out, my pretty one!" said Mrs.
Talbot, in a gay, bantering tone. "Indisposed in mind. He don't like
the class of people one meets at my house. Men of his stamp never
do."

It was on the lips of Mrs. Emerson to say that there might be ground
for his dislike of some who were met there. But she repressed even a
remote reference to an affair that, for the gravest of reasons, she
still desired to keep as her own secret. So she merely answered--

"The indisposition of mind was on my part."

"On your part? Oh dear! That alters the case. And, pray, what
occasioned this indisposition? Not a previous mental surfeit, I
hope."

"Oh no. I never get a surfeit in good company. But people's states
vary, as you are aware. I had a stay-at-home feeling last night, and
indulged myself."

"Very prettily said, my dear. I understand you entirely, and like
your frank, outspoken way. This is always best with friends. I
desire all of mine to enjoy the largest liberty--to come and see me
when they feel like it, and to stay away when they don't feel like
coming. We had a delightful time. Major Willard was there. He's a
charming man! Several times through the evening he asked for you. I
really think your absence worried him. Now, don't blush! A handsome,
accomplished man may admire a handsome and accomplished woman,
without anything wrong being involved. Because one has a husband, is
she not to be spoken to or admired by other men? Nonsense! That is
the world's weak prudery, or rather the common social sentiment
based on man's tyranny over woman."

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

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




CHAPTER XV.

CAPTIVATED AGAIN.


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

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

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

"At your house?" said Mrs. Lloyd.

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

"I think not," was replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"They are very good in their place."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Humiliating!" ejaculated Mrs. Lloyd.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Emerson smiled as she answered,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER XVI.

WEARY OF CONSTRAINT.


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

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

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

Work! We know the word has not a pleasant sound to many ears

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