e governor. He was greatly honored and
esteemed, I hear from a friend who spent a few weeks at Des Moines, and
everybody was so sorry for him."

"Did they talk of me?" Ethie asked, repenting the next minute that she
had been at all curious in the matter.

Mrs. Van Buren, bent upon annoying her, replied, "Some, yes; and knowing
the governor as they did, it is natural they should blame you more than
him. There was a rumor of his getting a divorce, but my friends did not
believe it and neither do I, though divorces are easy to get out West.
Have you written to him? Are you not 'most afraid he will think you came
back because he has been governor?"

"Aunt Sophia!" and Ethie looked very much like her former self, as she
started from her pillow and confronted her interlocutor. "He cannot
think so. I never knew he had been governor until I heard it from Aunt
Barbara last night. I came back for no honors, no object. My work was
taken from me; I had nothing more to do, and I was so tired, and sick,
and weary, and longed so much for home. Don't begrudge it to me, Aunt
Sophia, that I came to see Aunt Barbara once more. I won't stay long in
anybody's way; and if--if he likes, Richard--can--get--that--divorce--as
soon as he pleases."

The last came gaspingly, and showed the real state of Ethie's feelings.
In all the five long years of her absence the possibility that Richard
would seek to separate himself from her had never crossed her mind. She
had looked upon his love for her as something too strong to be
shaken--as the great rock in whose shadow she could rest whenever she
so desired. At first, when the tide of angry passion was raging at her
heart, she had said she never should desire it, that her strength was
sufficient to stand alone against the world; but as the weary weeks and
months crept on, and her anger had had time to cool, and she had learned
better to know the meaning of "standing alone in the world," and
thoughts of Richard's many acts of love and kindness kept recurring to
her mind, she had come gradually to see that the one object in the
future to which she was looking forward was a return to Aunt Barbara and
a possible reconciliation with her husband. The first she had achieved,
and the second seemed so close within her grasp, a thing so easy of
success, that in her secret heart she had exulted that, after all, she
was not to be more sorely punished than she had been--that she could not
have been so very much