After the Storm

"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.