During these early months of her married life, Mary enjoyed an almost perfect happiness, for the first time of her short existence. She sometimes wondered and was afraid when she thought of it, looking upon herself as being altogether unworthy of so many joys.

She had passed through the terrible ordeal, and the strange vicissitudes of her life had produced an ennobling and refining effect upon her character, which was reflected on her beautiful face. She was, indeed, as sweet a woman as the soul of man could desire. There was something peculiarly winning about her now; every graceful movement, every word and smile told of a heart full of innocent gladness and love. There was a childish simplicity, there was a delightful playfulness about her, that yet betrayed profound depths of feeling. She fascinated all with the unconscious witchery of her manners. The coarsest man could not fail to feel better in her company; she could touch what good was yet left in his nature; it would seem to him as if she were surrounded by some subtle atmosphere that affected his heart somewhat in the way that beautiful music does, a hymn of perfect chastened joy breathing of the lost Paradise.

When the husband and wife returned from their honeymoon—a long leisurely ramble among Italian lakes—Mary entered into the spirit of housekeeping with great zest. It was pretty to observe the delight she took in her new duties. She was quite in love with the little villa in St. John's Wood, with its trees and garden and greenhouse, there was so much to look after and take a pride in, and she was always busy at one thing or the other, filling the house with her blithe song.

Mrs. White passed some time with them at first to give the young wife some lessons in house-keeping, and very merry lessons they were.

One evening, the three were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner. The doctor was pretending to read a newspaper, but was really, under cover of it, watching his wife and sister with quiet amusement. They were engaged at a little work-table strewed with account books and other domestic documents, now chattering earnestly over them, now laughing together at Mary's blunders.

At last Mary caught her husband's eye; she stamped her foot in simulated anger, "You must not watch me, sir!" she cried. "This is not your business. If you confuse me by looking over me, all the accounts will get muddled, and then you'll be complaining of my extravagance."

"You are ruining me as it is, Mary," he replied, laughing. "You won't let me do anything for myself—you are always running here and there anticipating all my wants. Do you know you are spoiling me? I am becoming quite lazy and good-for-nothing in consequence of your treatment."

"Don't talk nonsense, sir, or I shall come and kiss you."

"Then I certainly shall talk nonsense," he emphatically exclaimed, putting down the newspaper.

"No one would imagine you had been married so long, Harry—you ought to have become more staid by this time."

"So long! Why we have not been married six months yet."

"Well it does seem a long long time to me. I suppose it is because all my life has been so different, Harry—but I threatened to kiss you if you talked any more nonsense, and I shall keep my word," and she walked towards him and inflicted the threatened punishment.

He seized her and made her sit on his knee. "You dear little wife," he said, "I thought you were perfect before I married you, but every day I see something new in you to love; I get quite afraid of you, I begin to think you are some sort of spirit, and will suddenly fly away from me one of these days."

She put her hand upon his lips, "No more of this nonsense, sir!—Now let me go. It is time for you to have that horrid grog of yours—I will ring the bell for the hot water—then we will leave you to read the paper by yourself—I am sure that is more instructive for you than watching us adding up butcher's bills."

"But not half so amusing. I am sick of these elections—the papers are full of nothing else. I am glad though that these detestable Radicals have been so well thrashed."

"Is that so then, Harry?" asked Mary becoming suddenly serious, and sitting again on his knee from which she had just commenced to rise.

"Yes, Mary, and it is their own fault too, they boasted too much about the revolutionary measures they intended to pass. They were going to confiscate the land and do all sorts of wild things, so people got frightened and would not vote for them."

A thoughtful look came to Mary's face; she said nothing more about the elections, but became unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. Soon Mrs. White retired to her room, and Mary mixed her husband his glass of punch. She sat by his side nestling close to him, placing her hand in his.

He drew her head to his shoulder and stroked her soft hair as he gazed down at her pensive face. "Mary," he said at last, "what is it, my pet? How quiet you are! and you look quite sad."

Her eyes filled with tears, and he was startled by the vehement passion with which she spoke. "It is—because I love you so! I cannot help being sad sometimes—Oh, Harry! Harry! I do love you so!" and she put her arms round his neck and began to sob.

"You curious little pet!" he said tenderly.

"Oh, Harry!—If I could only tell you my secret!—I wonder if you would still love me, if you would ever forgive me, were you to discover it."

"My darling! I thought we had settled that matter long ago. Really it is very silly of you to worry yourself about it."

"I cannot help it sometimes, Harry—but I will be good now, and think no more about it," she said, smiling through her tears and kissing him.

This was the one thorn in her happiness which still troubled her occasionally. Now and then, some circumstance, such as her husband's chance allusion to the elections on this occasion, would recall memories of her dark past. She could not tell him all. It was true that she was not deceiving him. He knew she had this secret, and he quite approved of the scruples that forbade her to confide it to him. But yet—there was this secret between them; and to her simple heart this was a terrible thing to be. There should be nothing of this kind, she told herself, between husband and wife. In her sensitive affection she imagined that the existence of a secret could not but separate them, though it were by an imperceptible distance only, that his love for her could not be quite perfect so long as this one chamber of her mind had to be kept shut to him.

It was, perhaps, an unnecessarily morbid view to take of the matter, but it caused her some painful reflection. However, it was but rarely that even this small cloud came to mar the serenity of her life.

The happy summer had passed away, and autumn had come again. One morning, after breakfast, Mary, who was in an exceptionally gay mood, insisted on taking her husband by the hand and leading him into the greenhouse, where she was about to gather the nosegay of flowers which it was her custom to give him every day to carry with him in his carriage on his round of visits.

"What a shame!" she exclaimed as she plucked the sober-hued autumnal blossoms. "The flowers that are out now are such dowdy-looking things. I can't give you the bright-looking bouquets you used to like so much a month or two ago, Harry."

"Why, this is very nice, pet; look what rich colours your chrysanthemums have! I often wonder how you manage to keep up such a brilliant show of flowers here at all seasons. I believe it will be just the same in mid-winter."

"I shall try my best; but here is your bouquet all ready; so take it and be off, sir," she said playfully. "You are late, the carriage has been at the door these ten minutes."

"Good-bye, dear!" he said taking the bouquet and kissing her, "I shall be back early to-day."

She stood still, watching the carriage with a wistful look in her eyes as it drove down the road. "Ah! do I deserve such happiness as this?" she said to herself with a sigh. She was about to return to the house when she perceived the postman stop at the garden gate and drop some letters into the box. "What a pity! Harry has just missed his letters," she thought as she walked down the drive and took them out.

There were two letters. She saw that one was addressed to her husband, the other to herself. She looked at the last. It bore a London post-mark. She at once recognised the dreaded hand-writing on the envelope, and the colour left her cheeks. She knew that the woman who penned that letter would not write to her save with the object of inflicting pain.

She opened it with trembling hands and read the contents. They were not quite so ingeniously cruel as might have been expected from the author of them: yet they were well calculated to seriously alarm the young wife, and wake her from her dream of happy security.

There was no address at the head of this letter, nor signature at the foot of it, but there could be no doubt as to the identity of the author.

Susan Riley's first warning had been sent to Mary on that day when the girl at last consented to become the doctor's wife. This was the second warning, a malicious pack of falsehoods inspired by the sight of the young wife's happy face in Regent Street. Susan Riley could not tell whether Mary would place any credence in her alarming story; even if that were the case, she hardly expected her to follow her advice and go abroad; but she knew her letter could not fail to terrify and inflict some mischief on her enemy, how much, chance would decide.

Mary was glad that her husband was not by to observe the scared look which she felt had come to her face. She could think this letter quietly over by herself for some hours before she saw him again.

She went into the drawing-room, and stood by the fire-place for some time meditating, and unconsciously she tore the letter into minute fragments and threw them one by one into the fire.

She felt very miserable and frightened: but the danger instead of paralysing her mind seemed to stimulate it at first, and she met the blow bravely. She considered the matter over with a calm resolution which astonished herself.

She pondered what would be the right thing to do, the most Christian course of action; for, as is the usual case with converts, religion was a great reality to her now, a leading motive in her every deliberation, even making her rather intolerant at times. She could not tell her husband the contents of the letter without betraying her secret: that she must not do for several reasons. Again, to fly abroad as Susan suggested, was of course out of the question: besides, how could she know that there was any truth in the statements of this wicked woman who hated her so bitterly?

Had there been an address to Susan's letter she would have written to her for a more definite explanation of this danger which threatened her.

She saw that her only course was to take no notice of the communication, to wait and pray.

But, in spite of her bravery, the cruel letter did its work. The uncertainty, the vague suspense, was more than she could bear. That day she excused her paleness and distraught air by saying she had a headache; but the next day she was no better; and after a week she shuddered as she felt that the shadow was slowly gathering once again to veil the happy sunshine of her life.

Her husband watched her with anxious eyes. "My poor darling!" he said one day, "you are getting quite ill and pale again. We must take you to the sea-side to bring the roses back to your cheeks."

She put her head on his shoulders and burst into tears.

"My dear little girl!" he said tenderly, as he stroked her hair, "what is it? Is there anything that is making you unhappy?"

But to his questionings she would only reply that she felt nervous, and suffered from fearful dreams. This was the truth, though she concealed the cause of the disease.

There was one dream which occurred to her almost nightly, so full of horror that she came to be afraid of going to bed, knowing what she was to suffer. In this dream she found herself a prisoner at the Bar in a dingy Law Court. She was on her trial as being an accomplice in an awful crime. She looked around; and on the faces of the judge, and lawyers, and jury, and witnesses, and lookers on, she saw only an intense loathing expressed. No sympathy, no pity, hate alone was felt for the abominable murderer of babies. Susan Riley, too, was standing in the witness-box, her eyes glittering with malice, giving Queen's evidence, nay, more, bearing false witness against her, weaving tissues of lies around her that there was no disproving, cunningly making her to appear more detestable a wretch than any criminal that had ever been tried before in that accursed place through all its long annals of crime. And her husband was there also, pale, haggard, his hair turned grey with woe, his eyes cast down, not daring to raise them towards his guilty wife. Oh, most horrible thing of all! even he, he whom she loved, worshipped, turning away from her, disbelieving, despising, loathing her!

And then she would wake up with a start, with cries and tears, to find her husband by her side, soothing her with loving words and fondling her as she lay sobbing on his breast.

She knew that she had an implacable enemy. She could not tell in what way Susan would work her harm, but she was only too certain that the malicious woman would do so to the utmost of her ability. The shadow darkened around Mary as she waited for the blow to strike, not knowing at what moment it might come. Yet how to prevent it! What to do!

In a fortnight after the receipt of the letter, a great change had come over her. All the innocent gladness had forsaken her. She wandered about the house a pale and listless being, taking no interest in the pursuits she once loved. Her great delight had been to take the green-house completely under her care; she had been very proud of it, and would allow no one else to interfere in its management. But now it made the doctor's heart bleed to see its neglected condition, its melancholy show of withered leaves that lay unswept, and faded blossoms on the untended plants, a sure sad sign to him of the darkness that was coming to his young wife's mind.

It was in vain that he tried to discover the cause of this change: his questions could elicit nothing from her. One evening towards the end of this miserable fortnight, they were sitting together in the drawing-room. He drew his chair close to hers, and after some conversation in which he did his best to coax her with affectionate words into her happy confiding mood of old, he said:

"Mary, dear! I know that there is something on your mind, you are just as you used to be in those sad days when I first knew you. You know I do not wish you to tell me your secret: but there can be no harm in your saying if your present trouble is connected with it in any way."

She moved uneasily in her chair, as if afraid of his earnest gaze, and replied with hesitation, "I don't know, Harry, I can't say. But there is no good in talking about it. I shall grow out of this nervous state again soon, I suppose."

"But there is good in talking about it. I want to understand what to do with you, how to make my poor little pet happy again. Here you are, getting sadder, and paler, and thinner, every day, and you will give me no clue to all this. You will not allow me to help you. Do so, Mary, please now! for my sake if not for your own. You don't know how miserable I am all day thinking of you."

"You promised not to ask me my secret," she replied in wretched accents. "Besides," she continued in desperation "what is the matter with me now, has nothing to do with my secret," and she could have bitten her tongue out immediately afterwards that she had uttered the untruth.

"Then what is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied in a sullen voice.

"My darling," he said sadly, "I don't think you are treating me quite fairly."

"Don't you believe what I say?" she said, half crying.

"Mary! I did not imply or mean that, and you know it. It is my love for you that makes me speak, and it is hard that you should reply to me as if I was trying to extract some secret from you out of mere curiosity."

"Oh, Harry! it will do me no good to worry me in this way. Please let us change the conversation."

She spoke in a pettish way, almost angrily, feeling the while bitterly ashamed of herself, knowing that she was in the wrong. She hated herself for having told a falsehood to her husband, and she revenged her misery on him. It is the way of our poor human nature when we hate ourselves, to torture those we love the most.

He thought in silence for a few minutes and then said sadly, "I don't understand you to-day, Mary; but I will ask you no more questions now."

Here the conversation dropped and a painful silence followed. Both were very miserable. It was the first approach to a quarrel that had occurred between them, and though slight, was keenly felt by natures rendered delicately sensitive by the great love that bound them together.

Dr. Duncan could not understand the change that had come over his wife. He saw that some sorrow preyed upon her health, that she was not suffering from mere bodily illness, though she would often impatiently deny this.

Occasionally he spoke to her in terms of mild annoyance. This stung her to the quick; she would become moody, and sink into stubborn silence.

Sometimes she would prevaricate when he questioned her, for her mental and moral strength were gradually failing beneath the great strain.

He perceived that her manner towards him was not sincere as of old. This caused him great uneasiness. Vague suspicions that assumed no definite shape crossed his mind, and by degrees a sort of estrangement really sprang up between them. Not that they were less affectionate than before; they were even more so, but by fits only, divided from each other by periods of coolness felt instinctively rather than openly shown, arising from mutual misunderstanding.

A really serious secret existing between a husband and wife cannot fail to bring about this result. It is more than can be expected from human nature, that such a mystery should not call up some doubts, though to be indignantly put away as soon as they have risen. But the doubts did rise and that was enough to work much mischief.

So on one side there was the doubt, and on the other side, indignation at being doubted, and shame, and sorrow, and dread foreboding. Susan Riley's second warning did its work well, and had cast a shadow on the happy home.