answered laughingly, and yet with a latent
melancholy in the smile that died away very
slowly from his face. " It is very well for
you, Warden, and for prosperous, easy-going
fellows like you, whom fortune favours, and
whose life-paths are smooth and plain, to
enjoy your eight or nine hours' sleep. But
sleep is too expensive a luxury for us poor
fellows, who struggle and strive with the
world, and follow an exacting mistress, ever
ready to avail herself of the slightest excuse
for deserting us."

"Yet you would not change with me.
Give up your glorious uncertainties — hopes
of fame and dreams of ambition — for my
common-place and inglorious certainties?
Now would you?"

"No! " Mr. Gower answered slowly, sending
his eyes out on some far-journey, and
bringing them back radiant with a
strange light. " No! " he answered, more
assuredly, " I would not change. I would rather
fight and battle on till death than know the
respectable composure, the dignified indifference,
of a man good friends with the world.
For me there would be no rest in your life.
I fancy I have not known what rest is, since
I was a child. But Mrs. Warden's tired
pale face reminds me to say good-night — so
good-night."

Harold went down-stairs with him.

"Harold, do not ask Mr. Gower here
again, please," I said, when he returned.

"Why, dear ? I thought I had given you
a pleasant evening."

"I do not think Mr. Gower is a good man.
I do not think we shall either of us be the
happier for having him here. No wife ought
to find pleasure in the society of a man who
shows no respect for her husband. I don't
mind his coming when other people are here,
but please don't ask him again when we are
alone."

"Very well, Annie. I think I can see
what you mean. I am sure you are right;
thank you, love. But I am afraid that poor
head is very bad again?"

"Yes, but it shall be well to-morrow," I
said resolutely.

I struggled, yes, I did struggle bravely,
but, O! so blindly! I struggled against
knowledge, and pushed it back from me with
violent hands, only to have it come and stand
there again, on the threshold of consciousness
—the knowledge that I was not happy.

Now we were settled at home again, things
soon went back into the old miserable way.
What was there to prevent their doing so ?
I had no new power of ruling myself, no new
hope for which to live, no new light by which
to walk. I loved my husband. Yes! but I
know, now, that one poor weak human love
will avail nothing when it stands alone, based
on nothing, looking up to nothing.

Harold, seeing me look ill and unhappy,
urged me to cultivate the acquaintance of
some of the many people with whom we had
exchanged visits, to try and make friends,
but when I told him I wanted only him
and no other friend — that he was enough for
me — he smiled and looked pleased, and said no
more.

So I fought on alone, my soul never satisfied,
my heart never at rest, and every now
and then some outburst of long-controlled
bitterness or pain betraying me and making
my husband miserable. He was very patient,
very gentle and forbearing, but at last even
he grew weary. His home came to be a
place that he entered timidly, not knowing
in what miserable mood he might find his
wife; soon he entered it less willingly and
hurried from it earlier, seeking in his business,
in the pursuit of worldly good,
distraction from its miseries and cares.

We grew rich; my husband more worldly;
even this blame is mine — I, isolating myself
from all human interests and cares, preying
on my own heart—grew constantly more
morbid, sensitive, irritable, and miserable.
The distance between us widened daily. We
stood afar-off from each other, but God
mercifully sent little hands that should have
drawn our hearts together.

CHAPTER V.

I HAD been three years a wife before I
became a mother. My first baby came to me
with the early summer flowers. I date best
by them, because afterwards many things
overlaid such blessed anniversaries, and made
it difficult for me to endeavour, and hard for
me to dare, to remember when, in what
hour, at what season, this or that happened.
And yet I can even now bring present to my
senses the delicious fragrance and delicate
loveliness of the flowers my husband brought
to me so often at that time.

After the birth of my darling, there
was a long interval during which I thought
I was at peace: physical weakness made
quiet and stillness grateful, and the new
great joy seemed to fill and satisfy my
soul.

Again I smiled to myself as I had smiled—
how long ago it seemed! — looking out on
the lovely summer beauty of the land
round Ilton. I lay still, with meek-folded
hands, and smiled into the face of my fair-
pictured future, my beautiful new life,
through this my own child. I fancied that
all the struggle and pain and perplexity of
existence were past; I looked back upon all
past misery as one waking to some blissful
reality looks back upon an ugly dream of the
black night. I had found something so sweet,
so pure, so delightfully dependent to live for,
that I thought I now had grasped Peace, had
detained her with my poor weak hands till
she had touched with her holy healing my
brow and breast.

"Yes! peace has come to me," I whispered
softly-smiling to myself, raising the tiny