ndering how she could have overlooked
the obvious probability that Hester, instead of finding the habit of
mind of a lifetime altered by the circumstances of love and marriage,
would henceforth suffer from jealousy for her husband in addition to the
burden she had borne for herself. Long did Margaret sit there, turning
her voluntary musings on the joy of their meeting, and the perfect
picture of comfort which their little party had presented; but
perpetually recurring, against her will, to the trouble which had
succeeded, and following back the track of this cloud, to see whether
there were more in the wind--whether it did not come from a horizon of
storm.

Yet hers was not the most troubled spirit in the house. Hester's
vexation had passed away, and she was unconscious, as sufferers of her
class usually are, of the disturbance she had caused. She presently
slept and was at peace. Not so her husband. A strange trouble--a
fearful suspicion had seized upon him. He was amazed at the return of
his feelings about Margaret, and filled with horror when he thought of
the days, and months, and years of close domestic companionship with
her, from which there was no escape. There was no escape. The peace of
his wife, of Margaret--his own peace in theirs--depended wholly on the
deep secrecy in which he should preserve the mistake he had made. It
was a mistake. He could scarcely endure the thought; but it was so.
For some months, he had never had a doubt that he was absolutely in the
road of duty; and, if some apprehension about his entire happiness had
chilled him, from time to time, he had cast them off, as inconsistent
with the resolution of his conscience. Now he feared, he felt he had
mistaken his duty. As, in the stillness of the night, the apprehension
assailed him, that he had thrown away the opportunity and the promise of
his life--that he had desecrated his own home, and doomed to withering
the best affections of his nature, he for the moment wished himself
dead. But his was a soul never long thrown off its balance. He
convinced himself, in the course of a long sleepless night, that
whatever might have been his errors, his way was now clear, though
difficult. He must devote himself wholly to her whose devotion to him
had caused him his present struggles; and he must trust that, if
Margaret did not ere long remove from the daily companionship which must
be his sorest trial, he should grow perpetually stronger