thy
and understanding grew less and less. I began to suffer from a desire to
demand from her a complete disclosure of all that had been hidden from
me, and this temptation to break my solemn promise grew when, asking her
on several occasions as to where she had been at this or that hour, I
found that she was evading my questions.

At last it became evident enough that I had not been deceived in my
increasing suspicions that something was wrong. One evening she burst
into tears as she stood before my chair, and then falling on her knees,
caught up my hands in her own and pressed them to her neck, cheeks, and
forehead.

"Whatever happens, you will love me?" she cried out desperately. "Say
you will! Say you will!"

"You know that," I said.

Perhaps I had answered as badly as I could, for it seemed to cause her
the greatest pain.

"I wish you had not said so," she exclaimed, with a wild look in her
eyes. "It is your goodness that hurts. Don't you see what comfort it
must be to a woman to have her husband cruel to her--beat her--abuse
her!"

I drew back from my wife, astounded.

"Stop!" I said, with the first show of stern authority I had ever made
since I had known her. "It's time for you who dare to speak like
that--to tell--"

"No! No!" she cried. "For God's sake, don't forget your promise. If you
do we are lost--I am lost."

She sprang up and away from me, and with her bare arms crossed over her
face and her hands over her ears to shut out all sounds, she ran from
the room.

This, sir, was seven weeks ago, and for many days following she would
sit and look at me constantly, until, feeling her eyes, I would raise my
own to find her face drawn as by a weary period of sleeplessness. At
these moments it seemed to me that she was trying to make me understand,
just as a faithful dog tries at times to communicate his thoughts by the
expectancy, the love, or the pleading shining from his eyes. How much
would I now give had I been able to do it!

Within the space of a week she brought to me the suggestion and the
plan, which I, being driven to desperation by the impending wreck of
our happiness, was mad enough to accept without foreseeing the
punishment I would have to suffer through giving for the second time a
solemn word of honor.

I think on that morning Julianna was more like her old self than she had
been for weeks. Her apartments, though separate from my own, are entered
from mine by a narrow door. I had