Love is oftener a response to appreciation, than a concession granted upon a rational estimate of him who seeks it. She did not yet know that I appreciated her. The time for her to learn it had not come. The casket of a woman's heart is oftener forced than opened with a key. Love had once entered my wife's soul, and, after accomplishing his mischief, left demons in possession. I could not exorcise--only charm them. For the present,--perhaps for years,--I must be content with this. In the distant future, which had a dim horizon of hope, I expected to make some final stroke by which to expel them. What it should be, I could scarcely anticipate. Necessarily, I foresaw, it must be like the highwayman's challenge, 'Money or life.' After becoming endurable to her, in fact, inveigling her into unforeseen familiarity, I must suddenly throw off the mask, and demand the love for which I had waited and plotted. Either she would surrender, or there would be a tragedy. The denouement came in a way of which I had no prescience. You will learn it in the due course of my narrative. But she charmed me, fearfully, when she appeared, after a morning's chase, resplendent in the fullness of her healthful beauty, beaming with excitement, her superb figure undulating gracefully to the restive movements of her horse. I could have prostrated myself before her, in a wild worship of her beauty. She had that quality which is so rare in woman, but so admirable where it exists,--entire fearlessness; for it is a most absurd mistake to suppose that masculine _virtues_ can not co-exist in woman with the most lovable, feminine delicacy. Partly her unblenching courage was the product of a strong will in a splendid physical organization; partly, alas! it arose from a disregard of life, which she felt was worthless.