After the Storm

Almost a dead letter of suffering had been those two years. There

are no events to record, and but little progress to state. Yes,

there had been a dead level of suffering--a palsied condition of

heart and mind; a period of almost sluggish endurance, in which

pride and an indomitable will gave strength to bear.

Mr. Delancy and his daughter were sitting, as we have seen, on that

sweet June day, in silent abstraction of thought, when the

serving-man, who had been to the village, stepped into the portico

and handed Irene a letter. The sight of it caused her heart to leap

and the blood to crimson suddenly her face. It was not an ordinary

letter--one in such a shape had never come to her hand before.

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

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

Mr. Delancy looked at his daughter with a perplexed manner, and then

let his eyes fall upon the legal envelope in her hand, on which a

large red seal was impressed.

Rising in a quiet way, Irene left the portico with slow steps; but

no sooner was she beyond her father's observation than she moved

toward her chamber with winged feet.

"Bless me, Miss Irene!" exclaimed Margaret, who met her on the

stairs, "what has happened?"

But Irene swept by her without a response, and, entering her room,

shut the door and locked it. Margaret stood a moment irresolute, and

then, going back to her young lady's chamber, knocked for admission.

There was no answer to her summons, and she knocked again.

"Who is it?"

She hardly knew the voice.

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

"Not now," was answered.

"What's the matter, Miss Irene?"

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

"Something has happened, though, or you'd never look just like

that," said Margaret to herself, as she went slowly down stairs. "Oh

dear, dear! Poor child! there's nothing but trouble for her in this

world."

It was some minutes before Irene found courage to break the imposing

seal and look at the communication within. She guessed at the

contents, and was not wrong. They informed her, in legal phrase,

that her husband had filed an application for a divorce on the

ground of desertion, and gave notice that any resistance to this

application must be on file on or before a certain date.

The only visible sign of feeling that responded to this announcement

was a deadly paleness and a slight, nervous crushing of the paper in

her hands. Moveless as a thing inanimate, she sat with fixed, dreamy

eyes for a long, long time.

A divorce! She had looked for this daily for more than a year, and

often wondered at her husband's tardiness. Had she desired it? Ah,

that is the probing question. Had she desired an act of law to push

them fully asunder--to make the separation plenary in all respects?

No. She did not really wish for the irrevocable sundering decree.