ast concluded: "Yes, he is
right. I understand. Although I may do WHAT his wife did, he don't
wish me to do it AS she did. There could only be a partial and painful
resemblance to his eyes. Both he and I would suffer in comparisons,
and he be continually reminded of his loss. She was his wife in
reality, and all relating to her is something sacred and past to him.
The less I am like her, the better. He married me for the sake of his
farm, and I can best satisfy him by carrying out his purpose in my own
way. He's through with sentiment and has taken the kindest way he
could to tell me that I've nothing to do with his past. He feared,
yes, he FEARED, I should forget our businesslike agreement! I didn't
know I had given him cause to fear; I certainly won't hereafter!" and
the wife felt, with a trace of bitterness and shame, that she had been
put on her guard; that her husband had wished to remind her that she
must not forget his motive in marrying her, or expect anything not in
consonance with that motive. Perhaps she had been too wifelike in her
manner, and therefore he had feared. She was as sensitive to such a
reproach as she would have been in her girlhood.

For once her intuition was at fault, and she misjudged Holcroft in some
respects. He did think he was through with sentiment; he could not
have talked deliberately to Alida or to any other about his old life
and love, and he truly felt that she had no part in that life. It had
become a sad and sacred memory, yet he wished to feel that he had the
right to dwell upon it as he chose. In his downright sincerity he
wished her to know that he could not help dwelling on it; that for him
some things were over, and that he was not to blame. He was profoundly
grateful to her that she had so clearly accepted the facts of his past,
and of their own present relations. He HAD feared, it is true, but she
had not realized his fears, and he felt that it was her due that he
should acknowledge her straightforward carrying out of the compact made
under circumstances which might well excuse her from realizing
everything fully.

Moreover, direct and matter of fact as he was, he had felt vaguely the
inevitable difficulties of their relationship. The very word "wife"
might suggest to her mind an affection which he believed it was not in
his power to bestow. They had agreed to give an arbitrary and unusual
meaning to their marriage, and, while thinking it could have no othe