es seemed frozen on her lips, and she turned from
his protestations of love with sad smiles, that seemed mocking him. And
she, alas, the woman who believes herself unloved by her husband, is
always in danger--always unhappy.

The first weeks of this strange honeymoon had passed, and Tom Fuller was
able to gratify the chief desire of his honest soul, and rush down to
the island to bewilder himself more hopelessly in the spell of Elsie's
fascinations, like a great foolish moth whirling about a dazzling light.

She had never scrupled to laugh at him and his devotion, even to
Elizabeth herself; but just now she was not sorry to see him. The
stillness of the house and the seclusion of those slow love weeks, was
not at all in unison with her taste, and she was already regretting that
Mellen had not allowed her to accept Mrs. Harrington's invitation to
remain with her during the first period of that dreary honeymoon.

Mellen and Elsie were standing on the porch when Fuller drove up to the
house, and dashed in upon them with such an outpouring of confusion and
delight that it might have softened the most obdurate heart.

"I couldn't stop away another day," he cried, wringing Mellen's hand
till it ached for half an hour after.

"We are very glad to see you," replied Mellen; "very glad."

"I am much obliged, I'm sure," exclaimed Tom, "and you're just a trump,
that's the truth."

"I suppose that's the reason you keep him so carefully in your hand,"
interposed Elsie, laughing.

Tom was instantly covered with confusion, and let Mellen's hand drop. He
knew there was a joke somewhere, but for the life of him he could not
see where it come in.

"You are beginning to laugh at me before you have even said 'How do you
do?'" cried he, ruefully.

"And am I not to laugh at you, if I please?" exclaimed Elsie. "Shake
hands, you cross-grained old thing, and don't begin to quarrel the
moment we meet."

Tom blushed like a girl while he bent over the little hand she laid in
his, holding it carefully, and looking down on it with a sort of
delighted wonder, as if it had been some rare rose-tinted shell that his
fingers might break at the slightest touch.

But Mellen was not looking at them; he stood there wondering if this man
could have been of any consequence in Elizabeth's past. Could she have
loved him, and been prevented from marrying him in some way? No, it was
impossible; he felt, he knew that it was so; but the idea would come