"I would do both, Edward. God knows I care as little for mere

appearances, so long as the substances, are good, as you do; but I

confess I would not have the neighbors speak of me as the neglected

wife; i would not have you the subject of vulgar reproach."

"To what does all this tend?" I demanded impatiently.

"To nothing, Edward, if by speaking it I make you angry."

"Do not speak it, then!" was my stern reply.

"I will not; do not turn away--do not be angry:" here she sobbed

once, convulsively; but with an effort of which I had not thought

her capable, she stifled the painful utterance, and continued

grasping my wrist as she spoke with both her hands, and speaking

in a whisper-"You are not going to leave me in anger. Oh, no! Do not! Kiss

me, dear husband, and forgive me. If I have vexed you, it was only

because I was so selfishly anxious to keep you more with me--to be

more certain that you are all my own!"

I escaped from this scene with some difficulty. I should be doing

my own heart, blind and wilful as it was, a very gross injustice,

if I did not confess that the sincere and natural deportment of

Julia had rendered me largely doubtful of the good sense or the

good feeling of the course I was pursuing. But the effects of it

were temporary only. The very feeling, thus forced upon me, that I

was, and had been, doing wrong, was a humiliating one; and calculated

rather to sustain my self-esteem, even though it lessened the

amount of justification which my jealousy may have supposed itself

possessed of. The disease had been growing too long within my

bosom. It had taken too deep root--had spread its fibres into a

region too rank and stimulating not to baffle any ordinary diligence

on the part of the extirpator, even if he had been industrious and

sincere. It had been growing with my growth, had shared my strength

from the beginning, was a part of my very existence! Still, though

not with that hearty fondness which her feeling demanded, I returned

her caresses, folded her to my bosom, kissed the tears from her

cheek, and half promised myself, though I said nothing of this to

her, that I would attend her to the picture exhibition.

But I did not. Half an hour before the appointed time I resolved to

do so; but the evil spirit grew uppermost in that brief interval,

and suggested to me a course more in unison with its previous counsellings.

Under this mean prompting I prepared to go to the gallery, but not

till my wife had already gone there under Edgerton's escort. The

object of this afterthought was to surprise them there--to enter at

the unguarded moment, and read the language of their mutual eyes,

when they least apprehended such scrutiny.




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