But she may be childless, she may be spared the bitter pain of estrangement from those who are indeed part and parcel of her being. What, then, of her husband? The man whom once she believed she loved, who has cherished her, trusted her, given up for her sake many of the realities and all the illusions of life, whose care has surrounded her so constantly every day and all day long, that, like the air she breathes, she can only be made sensible of its existence when withdrawn, whose indulgence was perhaps so unvaried as to escape notice, whose affection, expressed by deeds, not words, she has forgotten because it has not been repeated, like that other love, in burning whispers every hour. So she not only strikes him a deadly blow, such as his bitterest enemy would scarce deal in fair fight, but poisons her weapon besides, and leaves it sticking in the wound to burn and rankle and fester, that every passing hand in careless jest or wanton outrage may inflict on him mortal agony at will. Once, perhaps, she was proud of that brave, kind face, which she could not imagine blanched by fear nor clouded with shame. Can she bear to think of it now, quivering at the chance allusion of every idle tongue, warped into agony, like that of a man shot through the lungs, when her own name is spoken, purposely or otherwise, by some impertinent gossip or some rancorous, ungenerous foe? His sorrow has become a jest; that offence will soon pass away to make room for fresher scandal. His home is broken up; he can make himself another. The woman he loved has left him, yet there are plenty more as fond and fair ready to pity and console; but his trust is broken, and not even in an angel from heaven can he believe again. This is the worst injury of all. The strongest, the purest, the noblest of earthly motives to well-doing has failed him, and from henceforth the man is but a lamp without a light, a watch without a mainspring, a body without a soul. It is well for him now if he have some lofty aspiration, some great and generous object, to lift him out of his depth of sorrow, to rouse him from his apathy of despair. Thus only can he wrestle with the demon that has entered into his heart, thus only cast him out and, trampling on him, so rise to a higher sphere than that from which he has been dragged down. In self-sacrifice and self-devotion he shall find the talisman to set him free, not at once, but, like other permanent results, gradually and in the lapse of time; so, mounting step by step and gaining strength as he ascends, he shall look down from the unassailable heights of forgiveness on the lesser souls that can never reach to wound him now—forgiveness, free, complete, and unconditional as that which he himself pleads for from his God.