No life is the same to-day as it was yesterday; and the passage of a year necessarily makes many changes, though they may not be noticed by the careless observer. Thus to all her friends Adriana Filmer’s life appeared to be precisely what it had been when Harry first brought her to their pretty home near Central Park. But there were many vital differences, though they were not readily detected. Adriana herself had become still more grave and tender. She had been down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death for her first-born son; and such a passage cannot be made without leaving traces of its danger and suffering. Physically, it had perfected her beauty; her face had some new charm, her attitudes and manner were informed with a superb dignity; and spiritually and mentally, it had added to the serious strength of her fine character.

Harry was also changed. He yet loved with a sincere devotion his beautiful wife and child, and he loved none other with the same noble affection. But Adriana knew that there were lesser loves—flirtations with reputable ladies who liked to drive with him—who enjoyed his society on a pleasure yacht or a race course—who thought it quite respectable to send him little messages, to accept from him small services or such transitory gifts as flowers or sweetmeats. And Harry liked this kind of popularity. Without consciously 197 wronging Adriana, he loved to sun himself in some beauty’s smile, to be seen with some young married siren, or to escort a party of gay girls to a merry-making.

Usually he told Adriana of these affairs, and she was too wise to show the pain the confidence gave her. Her state of health, as well as her principles, kept her from many social functions, and if Harry did not feel compelled to respect her condition and scruples, she knew that it would be impossible to fret or scold or even reason him into sympathy. She had been aware of the diversity of their tastes when she married him; how, then, could she justly complain of circumstances which she foresaw and accepted by the very act of marriage? Only once had she spoken, and it was to her wise father. She could have gone to no more loving and prudent guide; and Peter’s answer was but the echo of her own feelings.

“In marriage, Yanna,” he said, “there is a tie besides love—it is patience. There is a veil for faults better than blind admiration—it is forgiveness. There is a time for everything, so if you have patience and forgiveness, your hour will come.”

Thus the first eighteen months of her married life had passed not unhappily away; and she lived, and loved, and hoped for the time when Harry would put from him entirely the gay, dancing, playing, flirting, immature existence, which was so unbecoming to his domestic and civil honor as a husband and a father. Indeed, he was himself beginning to be aware of the incongruity; for he said to Adriana one evening at the close of October:

“I saw Cousin Alida to-day. She is in town for the winter.”

“What did she say, Harry? When is she coming here?”

“She will call to-morrow. She hoped I would not compel her to go into the gay places of the world this year. I do believe the old lady went out so much last season just to watch me, just to make me wait upon her, and so keep me out of temptation. Fancy Miss Alida as my chaperon! It was very good of her—but fruitless.”

Adriana smilingly asked: “What did you say about the gay places, Harry?”

“I told her I was going to have my fling this year, and after this year you and I would settle down to a sensible career. I told her, indeed, that I intended to go into politics.”

“You have a great ability for politics, Harry. Professor Snowdon says you are a natural orator. How I should like to hear you make a great political speech!”

“Well, pet, some day perhaps you may have your desire. I think of taking lessons in elocution this winter.”

“Do not, Harry. Your own speech and gestures are better than acquired ones. I am sure you will make a great debater.”

Harry was much pleased. He cleared his throat, and straightened himself, and quite unconsciously struck an attitude. Then he kissed his wife tenderly, and said: “If I am a little late to-night, do not mind, dear. I have to preside at a supper given to our new opera stars. I will come home as soon as I possibly can.” And she smiled him out of sight, and was ready to give him the last smile when he turned at the door of the lighted hall for it. But he did not see her fly to her boy’s cradle and lift the child to her breast, and 199 with tears welling into her eyes, comfort herself with its smiles and caresses.

The season thus inaugurated proved to be one of great temptation to Harry, and of much sorrow to Adriana. Vague rumors reached her through many sources, some friendly, and others unfriendly. Miss Alida’s visits were suspiciously frequent; and her manner was too protective and sympathetic, and Adriana could not help wondering after every visit what fresh wrong her cousin had come to comfort her for. But hitherto the comfort had been inferred; Miss Alida had never said one definite word against Harry, and Adriana would have disdained under any ordinary circumstances to complain of her husband.

One morning in December, however, she was compelled to listen to a positive accusation. Mrs. Henry Filmer called at a very early hour with it. There had been an apparent reconciliation between the two households; but neither on Mrs. Filmer’s nor yet on Adriana’s side was it very real, for Adriana had in truth some honest grievances against her mother-in-law. She made constant demands on Harry’s purse, and she was still more unreasonable about his time. Often when Adriana’s state of health particularly demanded a husband’s sympathy and society, Harry had been compelled to leave her in order to escort his mother to some dinner or opera party. “Your father is so busy, and inefficient in company, so, dearest Harry, you must give mother just one hour to-night.” Such messages were very frequent, and if Adriana thought Harry only too ready to answer them, there are many desponding women who will be able to pity her. Indeed, his mother’s influence over Harry was great and never used for a kindly end. Every occasion 200 when Harry was with her was also an occasion to drop an evil thought against Harry’s wife; and such a conversation as the following, varied slightly with varying circumstances, was the usual trend of their discourse:

“I suppose Adriana made a fuss about your coming to me for an hour, Harry?”

“Indeed, she did not! She is quite alone, and she let me off very cheerfully.”

“Ah! she does not appreciate you as she ought to do! I grudge every minute you are not with me. I only live the few-and-far-between moments we are together.”

“My dear mother!”

“I dare say that old maid has managed to put all kinds of ideas into her head about your sinfulness—and you are your old mother’s dear naughty boy after all. What is this that I heard concerning pretty Cora Mitchin and Harry Filmer?”

“Hush, mother! I hope you put a stop to any such rumors. I would not have Yanna hear about Cora for the world. Yanna is not very strong lately.”

“She will nurse her child, and she goes on about it as if it were the only child in the universe. People say all kinds of things about her secluding herself because she has a baby. Her behavior is a tacit reproach on every mother who condescends to do her duty to society.”

“She is as foolish about little Harry as you are about me.”

“She is quite incapable of feeling as I feel. She is a mere marble woman. I wish she could feel, for then she might understand what I suffer in your desertion. Oh, dear! If in anything she would act like other 201 women! Every one pities you!—you, that have always been the very flower of courtesy and of all that is socially charming!”

“No one need pity me, mother. I consider myself the most fortunate husband in New York. And you ought not to permit people to talk in that way. It is a great wrong to me.”

“I do not, Harry. You may be sure I stand up for you.”

And such conversations, even if Harry did not repeat them, were divined, either from his manner or from some unguarded remark he let fall. It required all the strength of Adriana’s broad character to prevent her divinations from finding a voice—to bear patiently wrongs she could not permit herself to right—and to wait with unabated love for that justification sure to come to those who leave it to the wisdom of their angels behind them.

On this December morning Mrs. Filmer’s visit was unexpectedly early. She met Adriana with a worried face, and barely touching the fingers of her outstretched hand, said, “I have a letter this morning, and I think you ought to know about it, Adriana. It concerns your brother. I am sure it has been the most wretched thing for my poor Rose that she ever met the man.”

“That statement would be hard to prove,” answered Adriana.

“You need not draw yourself up like a tragedy queen because I feel so bitterly the mistake my daughter has made. Rose has been a miserable wife from the first day of her marriage, and there is no use in denying the fact. And if her misery has led her to unwise ways of seeking relief, she is hardly to be 202 blamed. She says, too, that she has never had a day’s health since the birth of her baby. And you know what a stern, unsympathetic man her husband is.”

“I know that Antony has a heart of infinite love and forbearance. Few men would have endured what he has borne without a complaint. Rose is unreasonable, petulant, and, in fact, unmanageable. Several people who saw her last summer have told me about her caprices. They can only be accounted for on the supposition that she had been ‘seeking relief.’”

“I have no doubt Antony is as bad as she is.”

“Antony is absolutely temperate in all things.”

“Antony is, of course, an angel.”

“I think he is. Certainly he has had more than mortal patience with and love for a most ungrateful woman.”

“All the Van Hoosens are angels; nevertheless, no one can live with them.”

“Mr. Filmer is a Van Hoosen, and you have managed to live with him. Harry is a Van Hoosen, and I find it very delightful to live with Harry.”

“Oh, I can tell you that Harry is no saint. I wish you could hear society laughing at the way he deceives you.”

“There is nothing for society to laugh at; consequently you are mistaken.”

“You blind woman! You poor blind woman! Everybody knows that Harry never stops with you one hour that he can help. He is devoted to that lovely Cora Mitchin.”

“Madam! if you came here to insult my husband, I will not listen to you.”

“I came here to enlighten the stupidest woman in New York.”

“I know all I want to know; and I know nothing wrong of my husband. There is no happier wife in America than I am. I believe in Harry Filmer. It is beyond your power to shake my faith in him. Good morning, madam.”

“Stop one moment. Rose is coming back. We must all, every one connected with Rose, do our best to surround her with proper influences. Miss Alida helped to make the unfortunate marriage, and I shall expect her to countenance and stand by Rose.”

“You must tell her so. I am sure she will do all that she conceives to be right for her to do.”

“I want you to tell her that she ought, that she must, give a party to welcome Rose back. Indeed, she could get Madame Zabriski to be the hostess if she likes, and she should do so.”

“Why should she do so?”

“Madame Zabriski’s favor would silence all the false and ugly reports people have brought from the other side. I look to you, Adriana, to carry this point.”

“I prefer not to interfere with Madame Zabriski’s entertainments.”

“You owe Rose something.”

“I owe Rose nothing but anger for the way she has treated my good brother. Poor Antony! My heart bleeds for him.”

“Poor Rose! It is Rose that is to be pitied. But you are an immensely cruel, selfish woman! It used to be Rose here, and Rose there, until you had stolen Rose’s brother. Now you will not even say a word for Rose; though a few words from you might get her into the best society.”

“I do not think society is the best thing for Rose, at 204 this time. Will you kindly excuse me? I hear the nursery bell. My son wants me.”

“My son! Yes! One day some woman will take him from you.”

“When that day comes, I pray God that I may have wisdom, and love, and justice enough, not to treat that woman as you have treated me.”

“Harry is my son yet.”

“Harry is my husband. And a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife. That is the Word of God.”

“I shall tell Harry of your temper! I shall!”—but she found herself talking to an empty room, and she picked up her fallen gloves and went away.

It was evident, however, when Harry returned to his home in the evening, that she had told Harry many things that had annoyed him. He was silent, unresponsive, and had an air of injury or offence. Adriana was only too familiar with this particular mood. Her first thought was to defend herself; her second reminded her of the hopelessness of the effort, or at least of its imprudence. Mrs. Filmer was not above the common tactics of talebearers; and she had before accused Adriana of being the informant, when, on the contrary, she had been mercilessly subjugated to information she had no desire either to hear or to discuss.

Therefore, if she told Harry that his mother had come to her with the tale of Cora Mitchin, and Mrs. Filmer had already told him that Adriana had been complaining to her on the same subject, whom was Harry to believe? The presumption was in his mother’s favor; but any rate, it put him in the miserable position of deciding between his mother and his wife. And she remembered that on one occasion when 205 she had proved her innocence beyond a doubt, Harry did not appreciate the removal of the doubt; he had worn an air of annoyance and depression for some days afterwards, and had been specially attentive to his mother, as if her conviction required his extra sympathy to atone for it.

So they had a wretched dinner, the only subject on which Harry was inclined to talk being the illness and the return home of his sister. He had caught the tone of Mrs. Filmer, and her commiseration for Rose; and he spoke of her only as “the poor dear girl” and “the sad little girl,” while his silence with regard to Antony was one instinct with disapproval and almost anger.

“Mother thinks I had better look for a house,” he said. “Rose asked mother to attend to the matter, but she seems to be worn out, and unfit for the work.”

“Is it to be furnished or unfurnished?” asked Adriana.

“Furnished, if possible. And it must be very large and handsome. They are going to build, but in the meantime they must rent. Can you not look for what is required, Yanna? Mother came to ask you to help her this morning, but she appears to have had but scant welcome in my house.”

“I am not able to endure the fatigue of house-hunting, Harry; and baby is very poorly and cross. He has a high fever to-night.”

“Mother told me I would find you unwilling to do anything.”

“She did not ask me.”

“She had no opportunity. You left the room.”

“If she told you so much, Harry, I hope she was honest enough to tell you why I left the room.”

“Well, Yanna, if you will listen to idle reports, and 206 then fret mother about them, you cannot expect her to join you in complaints against me and my conduct. She at least trusts me!” Then Harry, with a magnificent air of being wrongly accused, rose; and Adriana saw that he was about to leave the room.

“Harry,” she cried, “was that really what mother told you? How could she? How could she?”

“I shall not return until late. Do not wait for me.”

And so, with this evil impression—without caring for her explanation—Harry was gone. He had evidently been inspired with a sense of wrong, and he showed it; he had been led to believe that Adriana doubted and complained of him, and he was determined to make her feel that he resented her complaining. And oh! how bitter were the hours she sat alone, pondering the cruel situation in which the wickedness of others had placed her! Nor could she help a feeling of resentment against Rose. In every crisis of her life this girl had interfered to bring her sorrow. “She is my evil genius,” she said angrily, “and not only mine, but Antony’s also. Poor Antony! He has to suffer like me every wrong and injustice, and yet to hold his peace.” And her heart was heavy, and she felt a dark despair and a fretful anger striving with her prudence and affection, and urging her at all risks to set herself clear in Harry’s eyes. “But to what purpose?” she asked. “He does not believe—that is, he does not want to believe me. My patience has brought me only injustice; and in vain, in vain, have I washed my hands in innocency.”

But youth finds it possible to hope that such dark hours must be followed by day, and after a sleep Adriana thought, “Things will wear themselves right by to-morrow.” They did not. It was an unfortunate 207 time for a dispute. Harry was looking for a house for Rose, and was nearly constantly with his mother, and all his sympathies were enlisted for his “poor dear sister.” He was working for her comfort, and therefore he loved her; and nothing was in his heart or on his tongue for the following week but Rose, and a house for Rose, and when it was secured, the preparations necessary to make it suitable for her habitation.

As the time approached for the arrival of the steamer, it was a continual sending and looking for telegrams. Mrs. Filmer was in a fever of expectation. She spent the last day in doubting, fearing and watching, until she was almost hysterical. That she had a husband who ought at such times to be her stay did not seem to enter her mind; and Harry was kept at his mother’s side, or sent off to the dock or the shipping office, continually.

“The steamer is expected to be at her dock about ten o’clock, and you had better be at Rose’s house to welcome her there,” said Harry, as he took his early and hurried breakfast, and kept every one fidgety by his haste.

“I cannot do that and do my duty to my own house and child, Harry. The doctor will not call to see baby until eleven.”

“The doctor and the nurse are surely enough for one morning. I shall feel it to be a great slight to Rose if you are not there to welcome her.”

“Very well, if you wish it, I will leave baby and go to Rose.”

“And do try and be kind and sympathetic, and let the dear girl feel that she is welcome home again.”

“I shall not fail, Harry.”

Then he came back and kissed her; and she smiled 208 with a sad pleasure as she took her way to the nursery, and went over and over to the woman in authority there the symptoms to be detailed and the questions to be asked when the physician arrived.

Then she dressed herself with care, and drove to the house which had been prepared for Mrs. Antony Van Hoosen. It was large and in a fashionable locality, and there were fires in all the splendid rooms, and a full staff of servants in possession. Adriana disturbed their elaborate breakfast, and they were inclined at first to be impertinent and injured. But her manner soon convinced them of her authority, and she occupied the waiting hours in altering this cushion, and that picture, and in trying to give an air of home to mere upholstery and bric-a-brac.

She expected the travelers by noon, but some delay occurred, and it was two o’clock when they came up the silent Sabbath street, with carriages and express wagons, and a certain clatter and Éclat which brought every one, far and near, to their windows. Antony was the first to alight, though Harry immediately followed. Harry assisted his mother, Antony took Rose on his arm and tenderly helped her up the low, broad steps. They were both greatly changed; Antony looked ten years older, and also as if grief, and not age, had robbed him of his youth. Rose was still beautiful, but her face had lost its childlikeness, and gained something more dominant. She was thin and restless; but quite the woman of the world. As soon as Antony had placed her on a sofa he went back rapidly to a third carriage, and took from the arms of a French nurse within it a little bundle of white silk and swan’s-down.

His gentleness and care, his encircling arms, his face 209 bent with such infinite love, made Adriana’s eyes fill with tears. She went to meet him, and, with inexpressible pride, he withdrew the veil that covered the small face. “Oh, what a lovely child!” This was the exclamation from every one present. Indeed, the babe was exquisitely beautiful, as it lay smiling in Antony’s arms, dimpled and rosy, with large blue eyes full of heavenly memories, and soft little rings of golden curls, lying like sunshine on its brow. Mrs. Filmer cried over the beauty of the infant, and Harry kissed it again and again; and Adriana felt her heart swell with tenderness. And while they were all doing homage to the infant, Mr. Filmer came in; and he let slip all his acquired restraints, and forgot every other consideration in the child. He would have it in his arms. He would kiss its tiny hands and its rosy mouth, and he said it was “the loveliest image of humanity he had ever seen!”

And in spite of herself, all this enthusiasm depressed Adriana. Her own child had never been much noticed, she thought even Harry had given Rose’s baby more admiration than he had given his own. To be sure, little Harry was not lovely, as little Emma was lovely; but Harry was a boy, and also he had in his sturdy, large-limbed babyhood more resemblance to the Van Hoosens than to the more refined Filmers. Being a mother and a woman, she could not avoid feeling these things; but having a nature thoroughly just and loving, she speedily put down all thoughts that were not unselfish and worthy to be entertained.

Rose’s attitude also pained her. She was indifferent and even proud, and she seemed to take a pleasure in snubbing Antony before her family. So Adriana made her adieus as quickly as possible, and hastened back to 210 her child; for he was just then cutting his teeth at the peril of his life. Never had the little one been so precious to her. She did not permit her lips to utter a complaint, but there was a great unspoken sense of injustice at her heart; and she was hardly comforted by Harry’s return to dinner in high good temper; for he could talk of nothing but Rose, and Rose’s baby, and the beautiful presents she had brought for every one.

This was but the beginning of a life which did not promise anything but a constant trial of patience to Adriana; for Rose had that power which some women possess of engaging every man they know to do them service. “There is only Harry that can help me in arranging my social affairs,” she said. “Antony employs his whole time in nursing me and the baby. Sometimes I wish for a reasonable husband, such as you are, Harry. How Yanna must enjoy being left to herself sometimes!” she cried; and then, with a cunning little laugh, “Mamma tells me you are just as naughty as ever! For shame, sir!” And Harry laughed back, not unpleasantly; and then he offered to help his sister in any way he could.

“Mamma says that Yanna refused to ask that old maid to get me into her set, but I would not be in her set for anything. It is too stupid, and it is proper beyond endurance. We want something Frenchy and funny, and just a little rapid; nothing wrong, of course, Harry, the proper road; only a gallop, and not a crawl, on it.”

On these lines dinner followed dinner, and dance followed dance; and pretty Mrs. Van Hoosen became the leader in the set her ambitions leaned towards. The giddiest girls, the young sporting men equally 211 frivolous, who lived only to have what they called “a good time,” gathered round her. To such entertainments it was the merest form to ask Adriana, and as her health was delicate, she had a suitable excuse without bringing her principles forward to be made a matter of mirth. But with Antony it was different.

“It is a long watch, and a weary one, for I am on guard day and night, Yanna,” he said to his sister one afternoon. They had met in a fashionable store, where Rose was shopping; and standing a little apart, it had been possible to answer thus Adriana’s query, “Why do you not come to see me, Antony?”

“Why do you permit——”

“Ask me no questions, Yanna. A doctor cannot prevent symptoms, he can only watch for them, and be ready to fight danger when he sees it. I am in that position, hour after hour. That is all.”

“But it is misery for you.”

“Yes; but I am watching for the soul of one I love better than myself.”

“How long is it to last?”

“God knows; to the end of my life, if needs be.”

Then Rose called Yanna sharply, and both went to her side. “I am coming to see you to-morrow, Yanna,” she said. “I have something to tell you, dear,” and she spoke with the old bewitching smile; and Yanna answered:

“Do come, Rose. You have never yet seen my baby.”

Then at a word Rose turned to her purchases, and apparently forgot both her husband and her sister-in-law. Adriana had no heart to buy what she had come to buy. She passed out into the cold, dirty street, and drove back at once to her home.

It was fully two weeks before Rose remembered her promise; then she came suddenly one morning when Harry had gone away “queer” and the baby was suffering and cross, and the whole house a little affected by the tone of the heads of it. Rose was also cross, though she was sumptuously clothed in green velvet and golden beaver. She looked rather contemptuously round Adriana’s parlor. “I wonder you put up with this house, Yanna,” she said. “Harry ought to be ashamed of himself.”

“I am very well pleased with my house, Rose; and very happy in it. You have grown used to palaces abroad. And Antony is so much richer than Harry.”

“Harry could do better than he does. I do not understand how you endure his behavior.”

“Rose, if you love me, say nothing wrong of Harry.”

“He behaves too badly for anything. Mamma says the money he spends is dreadful! How do you bear it? I am sorry for you!”

“I am not the only one who has to bear. Constantly, I feel sorry for Antony.”

“What do you mean? What has Antony told you? At least Antony is true as gold to me. I would not suffer a husband like Harry. I would divorce him. Why, Cora——”

“Rose! You must cease at once, or I must leave you. You have nothing to do with my husband.”

“He is my brother, and the whole town talks of him.”

Then Yanna left her sister-in-law, and in a few minutes she heard her carriage go clattering up the street; but she sat still and tearless in the little low chair which stood by the nursery fire. Her boy was 213 taking a drive with his nurse, and she was quite alone in the room sacred to his innocent life. She kept the anger in her heart behind her closed lips, but she reflected that patience might cease to be a virtue; and that the time had come to demand from Harry some explanation of the rumors and accusations that had reached her.

“Mr. Van Hoosen is here, ma’am, and wishes to see you,” said a servant.

Adriana thought of her brother with a sense of comfort. She felt that she could open her heart to him. But it was not Antony, it was Antony’s father who came towards her with outstretched hands, and a blessing that fell like rain upon her hot heart.

“God has sent you, father,” she said solemnly; “for I am in a strait, in such a strait as no one but you can help me out of.” Then she told him all her sorrow; and it was evident to Peter that the sting of her grief was her husband’s frailty. “If Harry were only good!” she cried despairingly. “I could bear the loss of his love.”

“But, Yanna, my dearest one! what man is good? Was any one ever exempt from sin but the Son of the Virgin?”

“Oh, father!” she cried passionately, “will you be like the rest of the world, and take a man’s view of this question, just because you are a man?”

“My dear one, neither must you take a woman’s view just because you are a woman. The common law and the social law may regard sex; the commands of God are issued to man and woman alike; though our merciful Creator, no doubt, will judge us according to our circumstances and our temptations.”

“If Harry wrongs me, or I wrong Harry, the sin is the same against God.”

“It is. But it is not the same against each other. Harry could never wrong you as you could wrong Harry.”

“Oh, father! How can you say such a thing?”

“Think a moment. The infidelity of a husband injures a wife’s good name far less than the infidelity of a wife injures her husband’s good name. In one case the wife is only visited by the pity of her acquaintances, in the other case the husband is an object of derision; yes; in every age the world has thought the deceived husband worthy to be derided and sneered at. Socially then your sin would hurt Harry worse than his sin could hurt you. Between a man and his Maker, and a woman and her Maker, the cases are to judge; but between a man and his wife infidelity to marriage vows is not as hard on the wife as it is on the husband. I am speaking now, Yanna, as the sin affects daily life.”

“Oh, what must I do? What must I do?”

“You must be patient and forgiving. If the Holy One, in whose sight heaven itself is impure, can bear with Harry, can you not also bear? Have you fulfilled the seventy-and-seven times given for a brother’s forbearance, and was there any limit given for a wife’s forbearance? Has Harry yet done a wrong that your pardon cannot reach? Are you more strict to mark his offences than his Maker is? To be sure, you are blameless where Harry is guilty, but, oh, Yanna! is chastity the only conjugal virtue? Where are charity, patience, sweet temper, cheerfulness? In these pleasant home virtues have you never failed? My dear one, there is an egotism of wifely sorrow that drives a man to sin. Your mother made me unhappy very often with just such jealous affection.”

“You are very hard, father. I thought you would stand by me.”

“Not yet, not yet, Yanna! You must stand for yourself; stand on your own merits, your beauty, your rights; stand on Harry’s love for you, and your great, patient love for him; stand on your faith in God, your desires for the happiness of others, and your measureless charity for all. Oh, Adriana, when a wife cannot lean on her husband, she must stand alone until she can! Interferers only bring sorrow.”

“It is all so dark and void and lonely, father.”

“Put your hand out into the darkness, and you will find The Hand that you can safely clasp; that will lead you and Harry into confident and satisfied affection. There is much good in Harry; there are many years of great love and happiness in store for you both, if you, Yanna, do not get weary in well-doing. Is there any sin for which a man may not be pardoned? Is not the Gospel built on unlimited forgiveness?”

As Peter was speaking Miss Alida entered. She looked at him, and then at Yanna, and shrugged her shoulders with an understanding glance at the pale, troubled woman. “Well, Cousin Peter,” she said, “I am glad to see you; but I doubt if you are the best adviser for Yanna, at this time. Suppose you leave us a little. I have some words for my girl that I do not want you to contradict until she has had time to think them over.” Then Peter went out, and Miss Alida set her chair down with a vigorous little thump close to Yanna’s side. “I called on Rose this morning,” she said, “and I heard from Antony that she had come here, so I guessed what she had come to say. Now, Yanna, we are going to have some straight, sensible talk, and then, if you make a little fool of yourself 216 afterwards, it will not be Alida Van Hoosen’s fault. Rose told you about Harry’s fondness for certain society?”

“Yes.”

“And made more of her information than there was need to—that of course. What have you been telling Cousin Peter?”

“I said to father that Harry would make a great complaint if I behaved with certain gay men as he behaves with certain gay women. I told him I thought the sin in both cases just alike, and that I was tired of bearing wrongs which would send Harry to the divorce court.”

“Hum—m—m! What did your father say?”

“He said Harry’s sin towards God was the same as my sin would be in like circumstances; but that Harry’s sin to me was less than the same sin on my part would be towards him. And he told me to pray, and forgive, and hope, and wait, and so on,” she added with a weary sigh.

“Good, as far as it goes. We are going further, and we must not look in a one-eyed manner at the question. To begin at the beginning, none of us supposed, not you, nor I, not yet your father, that Harry was before his marriage to you, a model of morality. Before your marriage, antecedent purity was not pretended on Harry’s side; and your family never inquired after it, I dare say. Unfortunately, though early marriage is rare, early depravity is not rare; and I will venture to doubt if one youth in one hundred struggles unpolluted out of the temptations that assail youth. Whatever future obligations were imposed on Harry by his marriage, nobody thought of blaming him for the past.”

“I do not permit myself to consider Harry’s past. In our marriage he was bound by the same vows and obligations as I was. When he breaks them he is precisely as guilty as I would be if I should break them.”

“Not quite so. The offence of a married woman changes purity to impurity; the offence of a married man usually only makes what was impure a little more so. That is one difference. Your father pointed out the social difference—pity for the woman, scorn and derision for the man. I will go still further, and remind you that society in blaming the woman so much more than the man acts on a great physiological truth, affecting not only racial and family characteristics, but the proper heirship of large properties and the successions to vast estates. The infidelity of the husband inflicts no spurious children on his wife. If a woman has no other married privilege, she has that of knowing her own children.”

“That is not the whole of the question. A bad man may not be able to impose spurious children on his wife; but that does not prevent him from imposing them on his friend and neighbor.”

“That is a case between man and man, not between a man and his wife; and we have nothing to do with it. I am only trying to convince you that Harry is not as bad as you think he is.”

“And I say that it is wrong to expect purity from wives and not also from their husbands.”

“My dear Yanna, we shall have to call justice to our aid. There are certain virtues that belong peculiarly to men, and others which belong peculiarly to women. For instance, bravery is to a man all that chastity is to a woman. The want of courage that disgraces a man is no slur to a woman. If a ship is going to pieces, 218 men postpone their own deliverance until all the women have been saved; and if they did not, they would be infamous forever in the eyes of their fellow men. In the hour of death or danger, women faint and cry out, and it is no shame to them, it is only womanly, and they are loved the more for it; but if men were to so far forget themselves, what a measure of contempt would be justly given them! Yet men do not complain of this apparent unfairness; they know that being men, they must suffer as men, and not claim the privilege of a woman’s immunity.”

“One sin cannot excuse another, Cousin Alida.”

“It is not only one, there are many other points, which are just as remarkable; for instance, there is the dishonor of being found out cheating at cards. Men laugh at the fault in women; they call them ‘pretty little frauds,’ and go on with the game. But if a man is caught in the same act, he is quickly sent to Coventry, or to Halifax, or to some other shameful limbo.”

“Women are proverbially weak, and men assume to be their superiors in strength of character. They ought to prove it.”

“Come, come, Mrs. Filmer! If a woman’s weakness is an excuse, then the vigor, the strength, and the temptations of men are a much larger one. Their very excess of life makes them powerful to do, and impotent to resist. It is clearly unreasonable to expect men to be both as they are and as they are not. Simple justice demands that we should be more tolerant with men than with women on the score of those offences, which are the death-blow to a woman’s good name. You see, then, that each sex has a right to plead certain extenuations not permissible to the other sex.”

“I see that it is the privilege of the male sex to wound and to injure the female sex; and the privilege of the latter to bear and to forgive.”

“Well, then, Yanna, to forgive is a noble privilege, a safe and blessed generosity. And I can tell you, that I have known many pure, chaste wives who were just as bad wives as you could possibly find—cruel, selfish, spiritually-proud, intolerant women, filling their husband’s days with the bitterness of their tempers, or else giving way to an egotism of despair and weeping worse than all the wrongs they complain of.”

“My dear cousin, I do hope that you do not include me in that list.”

“I hope not, Yanna. I hope not. There are certain things that can only be got by renouncing them—your own way, your own desire is usually one of these things.”

“What am I to do then? I cannot bear things as they are.”

“If you cannot bear your troubles, you may be able to bear their remedies. You ought to have for Harry such a love as masters Time, and the infelicities of Time. Have you this love?”

“Yes, I have.”

“You can bear to think of loving Harry and living with him eternally?”

“I should be miserable if I thought death would separate us.”

“Good gracious, child! And yet you have suffered the word ‘divorce’ to pass your lips. Just remember that men do not marry women because they are very beautiful, or very clever, or very good, indeed; they generally marry them because there is ‘something nice about them.’ Now, let Harry always find there is 220 ‘something nice about you.’ You do not complain of Harry to any one, do you?”

“I have not, until this morning; nor have I listened to any report about him.”

“Quite right. To talk of matrimonial troubles is to burn the dirtiest chimney ever set on fire. But there are sins of omission as well as of commission. You have stayed at home too much. You ought to go out with Harry while his mood is to go out.”

“I cannot go with the set that Rose and he prefer.”

“You can go with my set. Harry must really be forgetting how you look in anything but tweed and China silk. Put away every appearance of being an injured wife. Be a happy wife. Let him always come into an atmosphere of good humor. No man can resist that.”

“Rose and Mrs. Filmer drop so many unkind words about me.”

“Drop kind ones about them. The incongruity will eventually strike him.”

“His family have always tried to make sorrow for me.”

“Of course. A wife’s foes are to be found in her husband’s family. Let them plot and plan, and you be sincere. Whatever is sincere invariably conquers. A week to-day we are going to have a grand dinner-party. Wear your wedding dress, and I have brought you my sapphires and diamonds. Dress your hair high. Dress to the utmost of your conception of what is splendid. Then march on Harry, and take him anew by storm. One-half of men’s passion for pretty actresses is grounded on their picturesque dressing. If they saw the same girls in a housemaid’s cotton gown and apron, they would not look at them.”

“Such a low side to touch Harry on!”

“Oh, dear me! Can you build a marble palace without the rough wood scaffolding? Do but be bright and cheerful and handsome and patient, and my word for it! you will see how swiftly Harry will tire of meaner women. For the rapid transformation whereby carnal love is turned into carnal hatred is one of the most wonderful things to consider. Now mind, you are to conquer all before you next Thursday night!”

So the invitation was formally sent, and Adriana announced her intention of accepting it. Harry was a trifle annoyed. He had grown accustomed to going out alone, and feeling a kind of safe repose in the idea of the wife watching on his hearthstone.

“Do you think you had better go, dear?” he asked. “Is little Harry well enough to leave? And there is your dress! I suppose it will be a very fine affair.”

“Cousin Alida made a point of my being present. I must go for dinner. I need not stay long after.”

“I have an engagement at the Union Club that very night—rather an important one—I wonder how I can manage?”

“You can take me to the Zabriski house, and make your apologies in person to Cousin Alida. After your dinner at the club, you can call for me. I dare say I shall be ready to go home.”

“Those Zabriski affairs are so very stupid.”

“Still, we like to have the invitations.”

“If you do go, Yanna, dress as Mrs. Harry Filmer ought to dress.”

“Certainly, Harry, I will.” And then with renewed hope she made her preparations. They were so successful that her face was radiant with delight when she 222 pressed her cousin’s large, capable hand and whispered:

“Harry said I was the most beautiful creature he had seen this season.”

“You are,” answered Miss Alida, looking with pride at the stately woman robed in white satin and lace, and sparkling with jewels. Fortunately, she had Professor Snowdon for a companion; and he brought out the brightest and sweetest traits of her nature, so that she recaptured all that old charm of presence which had once made her irresistible. So swiftly grew her confidence in her own powers again that she was easily persuaded to take a share in the music that followed the dinner; and when Harry came to escort her home he found her standing by the piano, and singing to its wandering, penetrating melody, with a delightful voice:

And as she sang, she caught Harry’s beaming glance; and so she sang to him, thrilling his heart with the passionate melody till a love like that of his first betrothal swayed it.

When she went away, Miss Alida put her face under the pretty pink hood, and whispered: “Good night, Yanna! You have done everything I wished and hoped. Harry is saved!”

But Miss Alida knew only the probable ways of men and women. This exquisite Adriana clothed in satin, and gemmed with sapphires, seemed to her the proper 223 angel of the recreant husband. But the wisdom of The All Wise had ordained a very different woman; even one of those poor souls expected by theologians to be damned, but intended by God to be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.