beg his pardon,--for then he
would be saved the disgrace of having to acknowledge that he had been
in fault from the first.

His sister left him alone without saying a word on the subject for
twenty-four hours, and then again attacked him. "George," she said,
"I must go back to-morrow. I have left my children all alone and
cannot stay longer away from them."

"Must you go to-morrow?" he asked.

"Indeed, yes. Had not the matter been one of almost more than life
and death I should not have come. Am I to return and feel that my
journey has been for nothing?"

"What would you have me do?"

"Return with me, and go at once to Exeter."

He almost tore his hair in his agony as he walked about the room
before he replied to her. But she remained silent, watching him. "You
must leave me here till I think about it."

"Then I might as well not have come at all," she said.

He moved about the room in an agony of spirit. He knew it to be
essential to his future happiness in life that he should be the
master in his own house. And he felt that he could not be so unless
he should be known to have been right in this terrible misfortune
with which their married life had been commenced. There was no
obliterating it, no forgetting it, no ignoring it. He had in his
passion sent her away from him, and, passionately, she had withdrawn.
Let them not say a word about it, there would still have been this
terrible event in both their memories. And for himself he knew that
unless it could be settled from the first that he had acted with
justice, his life would be intolerable to him. He was a man, and it
behoved him to have been just. She was a woman, and the feeling of
having had to be forgiven would not be so severe with her. She, when
taken a second time into grace and pardoned, might still rejoice and
be happy. But for himself, he reminded himself over and over again
that he was a man, and assured himself that he could never lift up
his head were he by his silence to admit that he had been in the
wrong.

But still his mind was changed,--was altogether changed by the coming
of his sister. Till she had come all had been a blank with him, in
which no light had been possible. He could see no life before him
but one in which he should be constantly condemned by his fellow-men
because of his cruelty to his young wife. Men would not stop to ask
whether he had been right or wrong, but would declare him at any rate
to have been stern and cru