She, with the fine instinct of her nature, saw this, and knew that but for the pride and scorn that forbade him to make the first advance, they might become reconciled. She, proud as Juno toward all else, had no pride toward those she loved, least of all toward him. Therefore, one morning, when they had breakfasted as usual, without exchanging a word, and Mr. Helmstedt had risen and taken his hat to leave the room, Marguerite got up and slowly, hesitatingly, even bashfully, followed him into the passageway, and, stealing to his side, softly and meekly laid her hand and dropped her face upon his arm, and murmured: “Philip! I cannot bear this longer, dearest! my heart feels cold, and lone, and houseless; take me back to my home in your heart, Philip.” There could have been nothing more alluring to him than this submission of that proud, beautiful woman, and her whole action was so full of grace, tenderness, and passion that his firmness gave way before it. His arms glided around her waist, and his lips sought hers silently, ere they murmured: “Come, then to your home in this bosom, beloved, where there is an aching void, until you fill it.” And so a sweet, but superficial peace was sealed between the husband and wife--so sweet that it was like a new bridal, so superficial that the slightest friction might break it. No more for them on earth would life be what it had been. A secret lay between them that Marguerite was determined to conceal, and Philip had resolved to discover; and though he would not again compromise his position toward her by demanding an explanation sure to be refused, he did not for an hour relax his vigilance and his endeavors to find a clew to her mystery. He attended the post office, and left orders that letters for his family should be delivered into no other hands but his own. He watched Marguerite’s deportment, noting her fits of deep and mournful abstraction, her sudden starts, her sleepless nights and cheerless days, and failing health, and more than all, her distracting, maddening manner toward himself, alternating like sunshine and darkness, passionate love, and deep and fearful remorse as inexplicable as it was irradicable. Not another week of quiet domestic happiness, such as other people have, was it henceforth their fate to know. Yet why should this have been? Mutually loving and loved as devotedly as ever was a wedded pair, blessed with the full possession of every good that nature and fortune can combine to bestow, with youth, health, beauty, genius, riches, honor--why should their wedded life be thus clouded? Why should she be moody, silent, fitful often, all but wretched and despairing? Often even emitting the wild gleam, like heat-lightning from her dark and splendid eyes, of what might be incipient insanity?