nge that, though Nature
had been whispering to me for months, I did not know what it had been
saying. I cannot but think it strange that, though I had been looking
for love so long without finding it, I did not recognise it immediately
when it had come to me of itself.

But when I awoke early in the morning, very early, while the sunrise was
filling my bedroom with a rosy flush, and the thought of Martin was the
first that was springing from the mists of sleep to my conscious mind,
and I was asking myself how it happened that I was feeling so glad,
while I had so many causes for grief, then suddenly--suddenly as the sun
streams through the cloud-scud over the sea--I knew that what had long
been predestined had happened, that the wondrous new birth, the great
revelation, the joyous mystery which comes to every happy woman in the
world had come at last to me.

I was in love.

I was in love with Martin Conrad.

FIFTY-SECOND CHAPTER

My joy was short-lived. No sooner had I become aware that I loved Martin
Conrad, than my conscience told me I had no right to do so. I was
married, and to love another than my husband was sin.

It would be impossible to say with what terror this thought possessed
me. It took all the sunlight out of my sky, which a moment before had
seemed so bright. It came on me like a storm of thunder and lightning,
sweeping my happiness into the abyss.

All my religion, everything I had been taught about the sanctity of the
sacrament of marriage seemed to rise up and accuse me. It was not that I
was conscious of any sin against my husband. I was thinking only of my
sin against God.

The first effect was to make me realise that it was no longer possible
for me to speak to Martin about my husband and Alma. To do this now
that I knew I loved him would be deceitful, mean, almost treacherous.

The next effect was to make me see that all thought of a separation must
now be given up. How could I accuse my husband when I was myself in the
same position? If he loved another woman, I loved another man.

In my distress and fright I saw only one means of escape either from the
filthy burden to which I was bound or the consciousness of a sinful
heart, and that was to cure myself of my passion. I determined to do so.
I determined to fight against my love for Martin Conrad, to conquer it
and to crush it.

My first attempt to do this was feeble enough. It was an effort to keep
myself out of the reach o