"But this will never be; your nature is too well regulated." "Ah! but Mrs. Dennison, you cannot imagine--you can form no idea how I have worshipped--how I do worship my husband. From the first hour I saw him to this, when we have sunk into mid-life together, it has been one struggle to keep him from overshadowing the love of God in this heart." A heavenly expression came over that pale face, as the noble woman spoke words that the reticence of her nature had kept back even from me, her tried friend up to that hour; and now they were poured forth to the greedy ear of that woman like an overflow of wine upon the sandvile sand, which a thousand repulsive things had trodden over. I could scarcely keep from crying out under the pressure of disgust that seized upon me when the creature lifted her eyes to the heaven of that face. In my whole life I had never seen an expression like that--so quick, so unutterably vicious. That instant some evil idea was born in the woman's brain; I saw it clearly, as if the map of her bad heart had been laid out before me. This idea, gendered from the loving goodness of Mrs. Lee's speech, broke into her eyes as the serpent bursts the mother-egg when hot sunshine is upon it. This expression revelled in her eyes a moment, and then crept away as if a reptile had left her eyes and coiled itself in the depths of her soul. I could detect a tone of exultation in her voice when she spoke again; but it was low still, and vibrated with strange fascination on the ear. "And you love him so much?" "I thought in my youth that it was impossible to love him better--that it was wrong to love any human being so much. Night and morning I prayed God to keep me clear of man-worship; but how can one pray against love to a God who is love itself? When I saw how completely my whole being gave itself to my husband, how impossible it was to weaken one throb of the joy which filled me at his approach, I gave up the struggle, and soon rendered double gratitude to the Divine Being for giving him to me. It was all I could do." "And did he love you so much?" With what insidious craft the question was put! How quietly the new-born serpent coiled itself in her eyes as the lashes drooped over them! "So much? That is impossible! No man--no woman ever gave so great worship to a fellow-being! He was not even aware of it, I think; for this love was a treasure that I kept closely locked. It must have been tender questioning, indeed, that could have drawn such feelings into expression." "But still he loved you?" "Loved me? Oh, yes; I never doubted it, even then; but after I became so helpless, so dependent on him for my very life--for if he had failed me I must have died--the beautiful affection of his nature manifested itself. He became my support, my very being. Oh! God has been exceedingly good to me!" "And in all this devotion, this excess of love--for so I must think it--has no distrust ever arisen between you?"