ere.

Edith, with the divination of a woman, felt this. Last night her
love alone seemed strong enough to hold him, to bring him back to the
purposes and the aspirations that only last summer had appeared to
transform him. Now he was slipping away again. How pitiful it is, this
contest of a woman who has only her own love, her own virtue, with the
world and its allurements and seductions, for the possession of her
husband's heart! How powerless she is against these subtle invitations,
these unknown and all-encompassing temptations! At times the whole drift
of life, of the easy morality of the time, is against her. The current
is so strong that no wonder she is often swept away in it. And what
could an impartial observer of things as they are say otherwise than
that John Delancy was leading the common life of his kind and his time,
and that Edith was only bringing trouble on herself by being out of
sympathy with it?

He might not be in at luncheon, he said, when he was prepared to go
down-town. He seldom was. He called at his broker's. Still suspense. He
wrote to the Long Island farmer. At the Union he found a scented note
from Carmen. They had all returned from the capital. How rejoiced she
was to be at home! And she was dying to see him; no, not dying, but very
much living; and it was very important. She should expect him at the
usual hour. And could he guess what gown she would wear?

And Jack went. What hold had this woman on him? Undoubtedly she had
fascinations, but he knew--knew well enough by this time--that her
friendship was based wholly on calculation. And yet what a sympathetic
comrade she could be! How freely he could talk with her; there was no
subject she did not adapt herself to. No doubt it was this adaptability
that made her such a favorite. She did not demand too much virtue or
require too much conventionality. The hours he was with her he was
wholly at his ease. She made him satisfied with himself, and she didn't
disturb his conscience.

"I think," said Jack--he was holding both her hands with a swinging
motion--when she came forward to greet him, and looking at her
critically--"I think I like you better in New York than in Washington."

"That is because you see more of me here."

"Oh, I saw you enough in Washington."

"But that was my public manner. I have to live up to Mr. Henderson's
reputation."

"And here you only have to live up to mine?"

"I can live for my friends," she replied, wit