for long-sustained periods of
indifference, unbroken by a single word of kindness. And as days passed
by and this indifference continued, until at times seeming ready to give
place to openly expressed dislike, and her ears became more and more
accustomed to words of hasty petulance, and Sergius grew still deeper
absorbed in the infatuation which possessed him, and less careful to
conceal its influences from her, and the Greek girl glided hither and
thither, ever less anxious, as she believed her triumph more nearly
assured, to maintain the humble guise which she had at first assumed,
AEnone felt that there had indeed come upon her a sorrow from which there
could be no escape. There were a hundred methods of relief from it which
hourly occurred to her agitated mind, but one after another was in turn
laid aside, as she felt that it would but aggravate the evil, or as the
opportunity to employ it was not given her. To make open complaint of
her wrongs and try to drive Leta from the house--to humble herself
before her, and thereby strive to move her pity--to reproach Sergius for
his neglect, and demand that, since he no longer loved her, he would
send her back to her native place, away from the hollow world of
Rome--to assume toward him, by a strong effort of will, a like
indifference--to watch until she could find some season when his better
nature appeared more impressible, and then to throw herself before him,
as she had once before done, and plead for a return of his love--these
and like expedients fruitlessly passed in review before her. All in turn
failed in promise of relief; and at times it seemed as though the only
course left to her was to lie down in her sorrow and die.

It was no uncommon thing then, as now, for the husband to neglect his
wife. All Rome rang with the frequent story of marital wrong. But those
were days in which the matron did not generally accept her desertion
with meekness. Brought up in a fevered, unscrupulous society, she had
her own retaliatory resources; and if no efforts were sufficient to
bring back the wandering affection, she could recompense herself
elsewhere for its loss, secure that her wrongs would be held as a
justification, and that her associates, equally aggrieved and avenged,
would applaud her course. But with AEnone, brought up in a provincial
town, under the shelter of her own native purity and innocence, no such
idea could find countenance. Even the thought which sometimes di