"Mary, dear! I know that there is something on your mind, you are just as you used to be in those sad days when I first knew you. You know I do not wish you to tell me your secret: but there can be no harm in your saying if your present trouble is connected with it in any way." She moved uneasily in her chair, as if afraid of his earnest gaze, and replied with hesitation, "I don't know, Harry, I can't say. But there is no good in talking about it. I shall grow out of this nervous state again soon, I suppose." "But there _is_ good in talking about it. I want to understand what to do with you, how to make my poor little pet happy again. Here you are, getting sadder, and paler, and thinner, every day, and you will give me no clue to all this. You will not allow me to help you. Do so, Mary, please now! for my sake if not for your own. You don't know how miserable I am all day thinking of you." "You promised not to ask me my secret," she replied in wretched accents. "Besides," she continued in desperation "what is the matter with me now, has nothing to do with my secret," and she could have bitten her tongue out immediately afterwards that she had uttered the untruth. "Then _what_ is it?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied in a sullen voice. "My darling," he said sadly, "I don't think you are treating me quite fairly." "Don't you believe what I say?" she said, half crying. "Mary! I did not imply or mean that, and you know it. It is my love for you that makes me speak, and it is hard that you should reply to me as if I was trying to extract some secret from you out of mere curiosity." "Oh, Harry! it will do me no good to worry me in this way. Please let us change the conversation." She spoke in a pettish way, almost angrily, feeling the while bitterly ashamed of herself, knowing that she was in the wrong. She hated herself for having told a falsehood to her husband, and she revenged her misery on him. It is the way of our poor human nature when we hate ourselves, to torture those we love the most. He thought in silence for a few minutes and then said sadly, "I don't understand you to-day, Mary; but I will ask you no more questions now." Here the conversation dropped and a painful silence followed. Both were very miserable. It was the first approach to a quarrel that had occurred between them, and though slight, was keenly felt by natures rendered delicately sensitive by the great love that bound them together. * * * * * Dr. Duncan could not understand the change that had come over his wife. He saw that some sorrow preyed upon her health, that she was not suffering from mere bodily illness, though she would often impatiently deny this. Occasionally he spoke to her in terms of mild annoyance. This stung her to the quick; she would become moody, and sink into stubborn silence.