Yet, compelled by the strange wilfulness that sorrow and loneliness have bred within me, I conceal all this from Marmaduke, and, returning the servants' salutations with a courtesy kind but subdued, I go slowly up the stairs and into my own room. All is changed. I pause and gaze around me with much wonder. Carpets, curtains all are unfamiliar, and where white once mingled with the gold, pale pink appears. The doors beyond are flung wide. What was formerly 'Duke's dressing-room is now transformed into a boudoir, while the apartment beyond that again is an exquisitely furnished reception-room. In the boudoir a small fire burns, and though we may count ourselves now well into the summer, still the bright flames look warm and homelike, and involuntarily I stretch out my hands to their friendly warmth. A knock at the door. Instead of calling out. "Come in," I go forward, and, opening it, find myself face to face with my husband. "You will not come down to dinner?" he says; but his tone is a question almost an entreaty. "No!" I return, ungratefully; "I am too tired. I shall be better alone." His face expresses disappointment. "I am sure you are right," he says, moving away. "Try to rest, and forget your fatigue." The remnant of conscience I still retain here smites me. "My rooms are so pretty," I say, quickly, following him a step or two; "they are lovely. Was it all your own taste? It was so good of you to do it for me." "You are pleased?" coloring. "I fancied you would like them changed." "It was more than good of you," I say again, remorsefully. "You think of everything, and I am always ungrateful." "Nonsense! Get back your old spirits, and I shall be richly rewarded." Then with a sudden, unexpected movement, "You are welcome home, Phyllis," he says, and bending, presses his lips to mine. It is the very first caress he has offered me since our second marriage; and now it is the lightest, fleetest thing conceivable. Confused and puzzled, I turn back into my room, with a sensation that is almost fear at my heart. What a cold, unloving kiss! A mere touching of the lips, without warmth or lingering pressure. What if he has ceased to love me? --- We toil, through pain and wrong, We fight, and fly; We love, we lose, and then, ere long, Stone dead we lie. O life! is all thy song Endure--and die? The sorrowful despairing words repeat themselves over and over again in my brain. They fascinate and yet repel me. Why must the wretchedness of this world so heavily overbalance the good? I fling the small volume from me with some impatience as Marmaduke comes in. He has been studiously cold to me of late; indeed, he has shown an open and marked avoidance of my company. It has at times forced itself upon me that he bitterly repents his hasty persistence at Hazelton, and would now gladly sever the tie that binds us, were that possible.