r traits of
his wife's character, stood before him as proofs of what might yet be.
His memory had kept no record of the fact that when in the first year of
his youthful sorrow, sick for comfort and believing her all tenderness,
he had married her, to find her impatient of his grief, nor of the many
times since when she had appeared almost wilfully blind to his ideals
and purposes. His judgment held only this, that she had never understood
him. For this he had seldom blamed her; but to-night he blamed himself.
Instead of shrinking away sensitively, keeping the vital part of his
life to himself and making what he could of it alone, he should have set
himself steadily to create a place for it in her understanding and
sympathy. Was not a perfect married love worth the minor sacrifices as
well as the supreme surrender from which he believed that neither of
them would have shrunk?

He returned to his desk and began to rearrange the contents of the
little drawer. Among them was a small sandalwood box which had been
their mother's, and which Stella had prized with special fondness. He
had never opened it since her death, but as he lifted it now the frail
clasp gave way, the lid fell back, and the contents slipped upon the
desk. They were few: a ring, a thin gold locket containing the
miniatures of their father and mother, a small tintype of himself taken
when he first left home, and two or three notes addressed in a
handwriting which he recognized as Wayland's. He replaced them with
reverent touch, turning away even in thought from what he had never
meant to see.

By and by he heard in the distance the roll of carriages returning from
the Fieldings' reception. He replenished the fire generously, found a
long cloak in the closet at the end of the hall, and waited the sound of
wheels before his own door. "The rain has grown heavier," he said,
drawing the cloak around his wife as she descended from the carriage.
Something in his manner seemed to envelop her. He brought her into the
study and seated her before the fire. She had expected to find the house
silent; the glow and warmth of the room were grateful after the chill
and darkness outside, her husband's presence after that vague sense of
futility which the evening's gayety had left upon her.

"I suppose I ought to tell you about the party," she said, a little
wearily; "but if you don't mind, I will wait till breakfast. Everybody
was there, of course, and it was all very fin