Doubtless we all fall short in our relations taken to each other. Never yet was the coffin lid closed on the dead face of a human being, but what in the hearts of those who had taken their last look, pressed their last kiss on the pale forehead—it might be the smooth, fair brow of a child, it might be the withered, furrowed face of a world-weary man or woman—there rose reproachful, sad-eyed ghosts of things they might have done for the dead, or, more grievous still, others they would now give much to have left undone. But it is not at such times the thought of sharp, hasty words repented of as soon as spoken, or of unkind deeds done in the heat of passion and in saner moments atoned for with all the earnestness we can command; it is not the recollection of such things as these that stings us the most deeply. Far more terrible and overwhelming, when we gaze on the dead face in its silent reproach, is the memory of deliberate unkindness—the long course of studied, repellent coldness; wrongs fancied or real, cherished and brooded over instead of forgiven and forgotten; duties even, performed, while yet love was withheld. CHAPTER VI. A CRISIS. “I will be quiet and talk with you, And reason why you are wrong: You wanted my love—is that much true? And no I did love, so I do: What has come of it all along.” R. BROWNING. SO time went on, as it always does, through weal and woe, bright days and dull. But this winter was weary work to Marion Baldwin. Worse, far worse to bear, she constantly said to herself, than the previous one, spent Mallingford at the Cross House. Then at least, though she had much to endure, she had been free from the reproaches of her conscience, which now, for all her endeavours to silence it, would yet at times insist on being heard. Geoffrey, though she saw him but seldom in the day, constantly haunted her thoughts. She fancied she perceived a change in him. His manner was the same—perfectly gentle: but never more. But the sorrow of his life was beginning to tell on him physically. He was fast losing heart altogether, as day by day he became more convinced of the hopelessness of ever attempting to win back the wife, who indeed had never been his! Yet she was gentler, more cordial even than she had been to him; always ready to agree to his wishes, much less irritable, anxious evidently to do her “duty” by him. She thought sincerely enough, that he was wearied of her, that it was too late to convince him that in her loneliness she was fast learning to prize the love and devotion which when hers, she had so rudely repulsed. For she was truly very desolate at this time. She was pining for affection, yearning for companionship.