usly, seeing her
husband pause and fall into distraction.

He pushed his plate away and rose. She met him in the middle of the
room. He extended both hands, took hers, and gazed upon her. How could
he tell? Would she cry and lament, and spurn the proposition, and fall
upon him with a hundred kisses? Ah, if she would! But he saw that Doctor
Sevier, at least, was confident she would not; that she would have,
instead, what the wife so often has in such cases, the strongest love,
it may be, but also the strongest wisdom for that particular sort of
issue. Which would she do? Would she go, or would she not?

He tried to withdraw his hands, but she looked beseechingly into his
eyes and knit her fingers into his. The question stuck upon his lips and
would not be uttered. And why should it be? Was it not cowardice to
leave the decision to her? Should not he decide? Oh! if she would only
rebel! But would she? Would not her utmost be to give good reasons in
her gentle, inquiring way why he should not require her to leave him?
And were there any such? No! no! He had racked his brain to find so much
as one, all day long.

"John," said Mary, "Dr. Sevier's been talking to you?"

"Yes."

"And he wants you to send me back home for a while?"

"How do you know?" asked John, with a start.

"I can read it in your face." She loosed one hand and laid it upon his
brow.

"What--what do you think about it, Mary?"

Mary, looking into his eyes with the face of one who pleads for mercy,
whispered, "He's right," then buried her face in his bosom and wept like
a babe.

"I felt it six months ago," she said later, sitting on her husband's
knee and holding his folded hands tightly in hers.

"Why didn't you say so?" asked John.

"I was too selfish," was her reply.

When, on the second day afterward, they entered the Doctor's office
Richling was bright with that new hope which always rises up beside a
new experiment, and Mary looked well and happy. The Doctor wrote them a
letter of introduction to the steam-boat agent.

"You're taking a very sensible course," he said, smoothing the
blotting-paper heavily over the letter. "Of course, you think it's hard.
It is hard. But distance needn't separate you."

"It can't," said Richling.

"Time," continued the Doctor,--"maybe a few months,--will bring you
together again, prepared for a long life of secure union; and then, when
you look back upon this, you'll be proud of your courage and good se