not tear herself from arms that placidly consented to her withdrawal; so
there had been no rending ecstasies. In consequence, on the journey up
to the community she was a little morose, a little irritable even, just
as the drunkard is apt to be irritable when sobriety is unescapable....
But at the door of the Family House she had her opportunity: she said,
dramatically, "Good-night--_Brother Lewis_." It was an entirely sincere
moment. Dramatic natures are not often insincere, they are only unreal.

As for her husband, he said, calmly, "Good-night, dear," and trudged
off in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road. He found the door of
the house on the latch, and a little fire glowing in the stove; Brother
Nathan had seen to that, and had left some food on the table for him.
But in spite of the old man's friendly foresight the house had all the
desolation of confusion; in the kitchen there were two or three cases of
books, broken open but not unpacked, a trunk and a carpet-bag, and some
bundles of groceries; they had been left by the expressman on tables and
chairs and on the floor, so that the solitary man had to do some lifting
and unpacking before he could sit down in his loneliness to eat the
supper Brother Nathan had provided. He looked about to see where he
would put up shelves for his books, and as he did so the remembrance of
his quiet, shabby old study came to him, almost like a blow.

"Well," he said to himself, "this won't be for so very long. We'll be
back again in a year, I guess. Poor little Tay! I shouldn't wonder if it
was six months. I wonder, can I buy Henry Davis off, if she wants to go
back in six months?"

And yet, in spite of his calm understanding of the situation, the wound
burned. As he went about putting things into some semblance of order,
he paused once and looked hard into the fire.... When she did want to go
back--let it be in six months or six weeks or six days--would things be
the same? Something had been done to the very structure and fabric of
their life. "Can it ever be the same?" he said to himself; and then
he passed his hand over his eyes, in a bewildered way--"Will I be the
same?" he said.

III

SUMMER at the Shaker settlement, lying in the green cup of the hills,
was very beautiful. The yellow houses along the grassy street drowsed in
the sunshine, and when the wind stirred the maple leaves one could
see the distant sparkle of the lake. Athalia had a fancy, in the warm
tw