er is ready, dear."
He heard a smothered exclamation--that it was smothered showed how
completely she was immersed in a new experience, one of the details of
which was the practice of self-control.

But, of course, that night they had it out.... When they came into the
sitting-room after supper she flung the news into his pale face: _she
wished to join the Shakers_. But she must have his consent, she added,
impatiently, because otherwise the Shakers would not let her come.

"That's the only thing I don't agree with them about," she said,
candidly; "I don't think they ought to make anything so solemn
contingent upon the 'consent' of any other human being. But, of course,
Lewis, it's only a form. I have left you in spirit, and that is what
counts. So I told them I knew you would consent."

She looked at him with those blue, ecstatic eyes, so oblivious to
his pain that for a moment a sort of impersonal amazement at such
self-centredness held him silent. But after the first shock he spoke
with a slow fluency that pierced Athalia's egotism and stirred an
answering astonishment in her. His weeks of vague misgiving, deepening
into keen apprehension, had given him protests and arguments which,
although they never convinced her, silenced her temporarily. She had
never known her husband in this character. Of course, she had been
prepared for objections and entreaties, but sound arguments and stern
disapproval confused and annoyed her. She had supposed he would tell her
she would break his heart; instead, he said, calmly, that she hadn't the
head for Shakerism.

"You've got to be very reasonable, 'Thalia, to stand a community life,
or else you've got to be an awful fool. You are neither one nor the
other."

"I believe their doctrines," she declared, "and I would die for a
religious belief. But I don't suppose you ever felt that you could die
for a thing!"

"I think I have--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "but dying for a
thing is easy; it's living for it that's hard. You couldn't keep it up,
Athalia; you couldn't live for it."

Well, of course, that night was only the beginning. The days and weeks
that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination.
Perhaps if he had laughed at her.... But it is dangerous to laugh
at unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost. So he never
laughed, nor in all their talks did he ever reproach her for not
loving him. Once only his plea was personal--and even then