But I did not even thank him for that. What had been wretched, while he was with me, became intolerable when he was gone. I drew the chairs aside, and walked up and down the long apartment in restless misery. Day after day, year after year, were we to live thus?--together, yet with a world between us--with nothing to say to each other--nothing to do with each other--a sullen, dreary silence, or half-a-dozen forced words, making all our domestic intercourse. I had anticipated much vague misery, but the actual exceeded the ideal; and yet, though it was miserable to be together, I was impatient and jealous of his absence; and when I threw myself into a chair by the fire, and began to gaze into it, and to brood over our new life, my thoughts settled down upon a nearer object, and I only wondered where he had gone to, when he would come back again, and if he came again, what he would say. It was so strange to raise my head, and look round, and see the familiar faces of those family portraits looking down upon me. Instinctively I turned to that portrait which I had said he resembled as a boy. I did not think it was like him now; his face was no longer the face of a student, with those downcast, thoughtful eyelids, and lines of visionary pensiveness. My husband was no visionary; he was not a man to be consumed of over-much thought; he loved the free, open air--he loved exertion and wholesome labor. With a strange perception I found out that this was the case. We seemed to have changed characters since the time of our youth. It was I, now, who lived the unwholesome inner life, who shut myself up with my thoughts. I, whose nature was not so--whose spirit was eager, and courageous, and enterprising--who all my life, till now, had loved adventure and freedom--I was paralysed. I was contented to sit still, brooding and wretched. I cared no longer for the healthful functions of life.