eoccupied way. "I shall go and smoke a cigar first, and
it does not seem much good lighting a candle for you." They both looked
somewhat drearily at the daylight, now no longer blue, but rosy. Then
he laid his hand upon her shoulder. "You are dreadfully tired, Lucy, and
I think there has been something the matter with you these few days. I'd
ask you what it was, but I'm dead beat, and you are dreadfully tired
too." He stopped and kissed her forehead, and took her hand in his in a
sort of languid way. "Good-night; go to bed my poor little woman," he
said.

It is terrible to be wroth with those we love. Anger against them is
deadly to ourselves. It "works like madness in the brain;" it involves
heaven and earth in a gloom that nothing can lighten. But when that
anger being just, and such as we must not depart from, is crossed by
those unspeakable relentings, those quick revivals of love, those sudden
touches of tenderness that carry all before them, what anguish is equal
to those bitter sweetnesses? Lucy felt this as she stood there with her
husband's hand upon her shoulder, in utter fatigue, and broken down in
all her faculties. Through all those dark and bitter mists which rose
about her, his voice broke like a ray of light: her timid heart sprang
up in her bosom and went out to him with an _abandon_ which, but for the
extreme physical fatigue which produces a sort of apathy, must have
broken down everything. For a moment she swayed towards him as if she
would have thrown herself upon his breast.

When this movement comes to both the estranged persons, there follows a
clearing away of difficulties, a revolution of the heart, a
reconciliation when that is possible, and sometimes when it is not
possible. But it very seldom happens that this comes to both at the same
time. Sir Tom remained unmoved while his wife had that sudden access of
reawakened tenderness. He was scarcely aware even how far she had been
from him, and now was quite unaware how near. His mind was full of cares
and doubts, and an embarrassing situation which he could not see how to
manage. He was not even aware that she was moved beyond the common. He
took his hand from her shoulder, and without another word let her go
away.

Oh, those other words that are never spoken! They are counterbalanced in
the record of human misfortune by the many other words which are too
much, which should never have been spoken at all. Thus all explanation,
all ending of th