ll bubbling with human life, full of the traces of past events.
One layer of consciousness was busily engaged in thinking out the
practical considerations of the moment, another was equally busy with
the objective and picturesque world of the river side. If the two or
more threads of thought were not actually followed at the same instant,
the alternation was so rapid as not to be perceived. What was to be
done? How was the situation to be met, if the worst came to the worst?
Ah! what far harder contests had gone on in these dwellings that one
passed by the hundred. What lives of sordid toil had been struggled
through, in the effort to earn the privilege of continuing to toil!

Hadria was inspired by keen curiosity concerning these homes and
gardens, and the whole panorama that opened before her, as the little
steamer puffed up the river. She longed to penetrate below the surface
and decipher the strange palimpsest of human life. What scenes, what
tragedies, what comedies, those bright houses and demure little villas
concealed. It was not exactly consoling to remember how small her own
immediate difficulties were in comparison to those of others, but it
seemed to help her to face them. She would not be discouraged. She had
her liberty, and that had to be paid for. Surely patience would prevail
in the end. She had learnt so much since she left home; among other
things, the habit of facing practical difficulties without that dismay
which carefully-nurtured women inevitably feel on their first movement
out of shelter. Yes, she had learnt much, surprisingly much, in the
short time. Her new knowledge contained perhaps rather dangerous
elements, for she had begun to realize her own power, not only as an
artist, but as a woman. In this direction, had she so chosen.... Her
thoughts were arrested at this point, with a wrench. She felt the
temptation assail her, as of late it had been assailing her faintly, to
explore this territory.

But no, that was preposterous.

It was certainly not that she regarded herself as accountable, in this
matter, to any one but herself; it was not that she acknowledged the
suzerainty of her husband. A mere legal claim meant nothing to her, and
he knew it. But there were moral perils of no light kind to be guarded
against; the danger such as a gambler runs, of being drawn away from the
real objects of life, of losing hold of one's main purpose, to say
nothing of the probable moral degeneration that