rs for? Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a
bee in her bonnet. He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have. I
wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family! Well, for an obstinate
man (and he IS obstinate, you know), the squire, when it comes to his
wife, has no more backbone than a wet string."

"Wonder if there's anything under it all?" came the sly insinuation of
gossip; "wonder if she hasn't got something besides the Shakers up her
sleeve? You wait!"

If Athalia's imagination spared her these comments, Lewis's
unimaginative common sense supplied them. He knew what other men and
husbands were saying about him; what servants and gossip and friends
insinuated to one another, and set his jaw in silence. He made no excuse
and no explanation. Why should he? The facts spoke. His wife did prefer
the Shakers to her husband and her home. To have interfered with her
purpose by any plea of his personal unhappiness, or by any threat of an
appeal to law, or even by refusing to give the "consent" essential to
her admission, would not have altered these facts. As for his reasons
for going with her, they would not have enhanced his dignity in the eyes
of the men who wouldn't have had any such nonsense in their families: he
must be near her to see that she did not suffer too much hardship, and
to bring her home when she was ready to come.

In those days of tearing his life up by the roots the silent man was
just a little more silent, that was all. But the fact was burning into
his consciousness: he couldn't keep his wife! That was what they said,
and that was the truth. It seemed to him as if his soul blushed at
his helplessness. But his face was perfectly stolid. He told Athalia,
passively, that he had rented the house and mill to Henry Davis; that he
had settled half his capital upon her, so that she would have some money
to put into the common treasury of the community; then he added that
he had taken a house for himself near the settlement, and that he would
hire out to the Shakers when they were haying, or do any farm-work that
he could get.

"I can take care of myself, I guess," he said; "I used to camp out when
I was a boy, and I can cook pretty well, mother always said." He looked
at her wistfully; but the uncomfortable-ness of such an arrangement
did not strike her. In her desire for a new emotion, her eagerness to
FEEL--that eagerness which is really a sensuality of the mind--she was
too absorbed i