n, but which now bore the imprint of a secret sadness; in
her concentrated manner, in her silence and abstraction.

What was the matter with her? He questioned her, and she replied with
the prudence that she used in all her conversation with him. He examined
her medically, but found nothing to indicate a sickly condition which
would justify the change in her.

If she did not wish to answer his questions, and he had the proof that
she did not wish to; if, on the other hand, she was not ill, and he was
convinced that she was not--there must be something serious the matter
to make the woman whom but lately he read so easily become an enigma
that made him uneasy.

And this thing--if it were that whose crushing weight he himself carried
on his bent shoulders? She divined, she understood, if not all, at least
a part of the truth.

What an extraordinary situation was hers, and one which might truly
destroy her reason.

Nothing to fear from others, everything from himself. Justice, law, the
world--on all sides he was let alone; nothing was asked of him; that
which was owed was paid; but he by a sickly aberration was going to
awake the dead who slept in their tomb, from which no one thought of
taking them, and to make spectres of them which he alone saw and heard.

And he believed himself strong. Fool that he was, and still more foolish
to have taken such a charge when by the exercise of his will he did
not place himself in a condition to carry it! To will! But he had not
learned how to will.

CHAPTER XLII. THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM

The relative calm that Saniel had felt since his marriage he owed to
Phillis; to the strength, the confidence, the peace that he drew from
her. Phillis without strength, without confidence, without interior
peace, such as she was now, could not give him what she no longer had
herself, and he returned to the distracted condition that preceded
his marriage, and felt the same anguish, the same agitation, the same
madness. The beautiful relations, worldly consideration, success,
decorations, honors, were good for others; but for his happiness he
required the tranquillity and serenity of his wife, and her good moral
health which passed into him when she slept on his shoulder. In that
case there were no sudden awakenings, no sleeplessness; at the sound of
her gentle respiration he was reassured, and the spectres remained in
their tomb.

But now that this respiration was agitated, and he no l