re
property to his wife for her life, providing for its subsequent
descent to his child,--or children. It had never even occurred to his
poor shattered brain that it would be well for him to alter his will.
Had he really believed that his wife had betrayed him, doubtless he
would have done so. He would have hated her, have distrusted her
altogether, and have believed her to be an evil thing. He had no such
belief. But in his desire to achieve empire, and in the sorrows which
had come upon him in his unsuccessful struggle, his mind had wavered
so frequently, that his spoken words were no true indicators of his
thoughts; and in all his arguments he failed to express either his
convictions or his desires. When he would say something stronger than
he intended, and it would be put to him by his wife, by her father or
mother, or by some friend of hers, whether he did believe that she
had been untrue to him, he would recoil from the answer which his
heart would dictate, lest he should seem to make an acknowledgment
that might weaken the ground upon which he stood. Then he would
satisfy his own conscience by assuring himself that he had never
accused her of such sin. She was still clinging to him now as his
mind was working after this fashion. "Louis," she said, "let it all
be as though there had been nothing."

"How can that be, my dear?"

"Not to others;--but to us it can be so. There shall be no word
spoken of the past." Again he shook his head. "Will it not be best
that there should be no word spoken?"

"'Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue,'" he said, beginning to
quote from a poem which had formerly been frequent in his hands.

"Cannot there be real forgiveness between you and me,--between
husband and wife who, in truth, love each other? Do you think that I
would tell you of it again?" He felt that in all that she said there
was an assumption that she had been right, and that he had been
wrong. She was promising to forgive. She was undertaking to forget.
She was willing to take him back to the warmth of her love, and the
comfort of her kindness,--but was not asking to be taken back. This
was what he could not and would not endure. He had determined that
if she behaved well to him, he would not be harsh to her, and he
was struggling to keep up to his resolve. He would accuse her of
nothing,--if he could help it. But he could not say a word that would
even imply that she need forget,--that she should forgive. It