at in Parliament. She had encountered the jealousy of
her husband with scorn,--and had then deserted him because he was
jealous. And all this she did with a consciousness of her own virtue
which was almost as sublime as it was ill-founded. She had been
wrong. She confessed so much to herself with bitter tears. She had
marred the happiness of three persons by the mistake she had made in
early life. But it had not yet occurred to her that she had sinned.
To her thinking the jealousy of her husband had been preposterous and
abominable, because she had known,--and had therefore felt that he
should have known,--that she would never disgrace him by that which
the world calls falsehood in a wife. She had married him without
loving him, but it seemed to her that he was in fault for that. They
had become wretched, but she had never pitied his wretchedness. She
had left him, and thought herself to be ill-used because he had
ventured to reclaim his wife. Through it all she had been true in her
regard to the one man she had ever loved, and,--though she admitted
her own folly and knew her own shipwreck,--yet she had always drawn
some woman's consolation from the conviction of her own constancy.
He had vanished from her sight for a while with a young wife,--never
from her mind,--and then he had returned a widower. Through silence,
absence, and distance she had been true to him. On his return to
his old ways she had at once welcomed him and strove to aid him.
Everything that was hers should be his,--if only he would open his
hands to take it. And she would tell it him all,--let him know every
corner of her heart. She was a married woman, and could not be his
wife. She was a woman of virtue, and would not be his mistress. But
she would be to him a friend so tender that no wife, no mistress
should ever have been fonder! She did tell him everything as they
stood together on the ramparts of the old Saxon castle. Then he had
kissed her, and pressed her to his heart,--not because he loved her,
but because he was generous. She had partly understood it all,--but
yet had not understood it thoroughly. He did not assure her of his
love,--but then she was a wife, and would have admitted no love that
was sinful. When she returned to Dresden that night she stood gazing
at herself in the glass and saw that there was nothing there to
attract the love of such a man as Phineas Finn,--of one who was
himself glorious with manly beauty; but yet for her sad