el. And then he had been torn to the heart
by his memory of those passages of love which had been so sweet to
him. He had married her to be the joy of his life, and she had become
so to his entire satisfaction when in his passion he had sent her
away. He already knew that he had made a great mistake. Angry as he
had been, he should not have thus sought to avenge himself. He should
have known himself better than to think that because she had been in
fault he could therefore live without her. He had owned to himself
when his sister had come to him that he must use her services in
getting his wife once again. Was she not the one human being that
suited him at all points? But still,--but still his honour must be
saved. If she in truth desired to come back to him, she would not
hesitate to own that she had been in fault.

"What am I to say to her? What message will you send to her? You will
hardly let me go back without some word." This was said to him by his
sister as he walked about the room in his misery. What message could
he send? He desired to return himself, and was willing to do so at
a moment's notice if only he could be assured that if he did so she
would as a wife do her duty by owning that she had been in the wrong.
How should he live with a wife who would always be asserting to
herself, and able to assert to him, that in this extremity of their
trouble he had been the cause of it;--not that she would so assert
it aloud, but that the power of doing so would be always present to
her and to him? And yet he was resolved to return, and if he allowed
his sister to go back without him never would there come so fair an
opportunity again. "I have done my duty by you," said his sister.

"Yes, yes. I need hardly tell you that I am grateful to you."

"And now do your duty by her."

"If she will write to me one line to beg me to come I will do so."

"You have absolutely driven her away from you, and left her abruptly,
so that she should have no opportunity of imploring you to spare her.
And now you expect that she should do so?"

"Yes;--if she were wrong. By your own showing she was the first to
sin against me."

"You do not know the nature of a woman, and especially you do not
know hers. I have nothing further to say. I shall leave this by the
early train to-morrow morning, and you can go with me or let me go
alone as you please. I have said what I came to say, and if I have
said it without effect it will only show