ace that lent an aspect of strange unreality to her
brilliant attire. "How shall I keep it secret! The thought haunts me
every moment; how can I keep it secret!"

"Why, is there any danger of its being known?" I inquired. "Were you
seen or followed?"

"No," she murmured. "It all went off well, but----"

"Where is the danger, then?"

"I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be laid;
they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known whether we will
or not. I did not think of this before. I was mad, reckless, what you
will. But ever since the night has come, I have felt it crushing upon me
like a pall that smothers life and youth and love out of my heart. While
the sunlight remained I could endure it; but now--oh, Auntie, I have
done something that will keep me in constant fear. I have allied myself
to a living apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness."

I was too aghast to speak.

"For two hours I have played at being gay. Dressed in my bridal white,
and crowned with roses, I have greeted my friends as if they were
wedding-guests, and made believe to myself that all the compliments
bestowed upon me--and they are only too numerous--were just so many
congratulations upon my marriage. But it was no use; Eleanore knew it
was no use. She has gone to her room to pray, while I--I have come here
for the first time, perhaps for the last, to fall at some one's feet and
cry,--' God have mercy upon me!'"

I looked at her in uncontrollable emotion. "Oh, Mary, have I only
succeeded, then, in making you miserable?"

She did not answer; she was engaged in picking up the crown of roses
which had fallen from her hair to the floor.

"If I had not been taught to love money so!" she said at length. "If,
like Eleanore, I could look upon the splendor which has been ours from
childhood as a mere accessory of life, easy to be dropped at the call of
duty or affection! If prestige, adulation, and elegant belongings were
not so much to me; or love, friendship, and domestic happiness more!
If only I could walk a step without dragging the chain of a thousand
luxurious longings after me. Eleanore can. Imperious as she often is in
her beautiful womanhood, haughty as she can be when the delicate quick
of her personality is touched too rudely, I have known her to sit by the
hour in a low, chilly, ill-lighted and ill-smelling garret, cradling a
dirty child on her knee, and feeding with her own hand an impatient old
wo