ting, Anne, holding the letters in her hand, turned
and looked at her.

"Well, dear, will you go to bed?" she said, solicitously.

"Why should I go to bed?"

"I thought perhaps you had heard--had heard bad news."

"On the contrary," replied Anne, slowly and gravely, "I am afraid,
mademoiselle, that the news is good--even very good."

For her heart had flown out of its cage and upward as a freed bird darts
up in the sky. The bond, on her side at least, was gone; she was free.
_Now_ she would live a life of self-abnegation and labor, but without
inward thralldom. Women had lived such lives before she was born, women
would live such lives after she was dead. She would be one of the
sisterhood, and coveting nothing of the actual joy of love, she would
cherish only the ideal, an altar-light within, burning forever. The
cares of each day were as nothing now: she was free, free!

In her exaltation she did not recognize as wrong the opposite course she
had intended to follow before the lightning fell, namely, uniting
herself to one man while so deeply loving another. She was of so humble
and unconscious a spirit regarding herself that it had not seemed to her
that the inner feelings of her heart would be of consequence to Rast, so
long as she was the obedient, devoted, faithful wife she was determined
with all her soul to be. For she had not that imaginative egotism which
so many women possess, which makes them spend their lives in illusion,
weaving round their every thought and word an importance which no one
else can discern. According to these women, there are a thousand
innocent acts which "he" (lover or husband) "would not for an instant
allow," although to the world at large "he" appears indifferent enough.
They go through long turmoil, from which they emerge triumphantly,
founded upon some hidden jealousy which "he" is supposed to feel, so
well hidden generally, and so entirely supposed, that persons with less
imagination never observe it. But after all, smile as we may, it is only
those who are in most respects happy and fortunate wives who can so
entertain themselves. For cold unkindness, or a harsh and brutal word,
will rend this filmy fabric of imagination immediately, never to be
rewoven again.

Anne wrote to Rast, repeating the contents of the old letter, which had
been doomed never to reach him. She asked him to return the wanderer
unopened when it was forwarded to him from the island; there was a depth
of