reduce to rule, which knows no law of precedent or experience, reigned
here in full force. It is just possible that the desperate circumstances
of the attachment, the passionate pursuit of the lover, not to be checked
by any obstacle, may have had an influence upon the girl's mind. There
was a romance in such love as this that had not existed in Mr. Fenton's
straightforward wooing; and Marian was too young to be quite proof
against the subtle charm of a secret, romantic, despairing passion.

For some time she was very happy; and the remote farm-house, with its
old-fashioned gardens and fair stretch of meadow-land beyond them, where
all shade and beauty had not yet been sacrificed to the interests of
agriculture, seemed to her in those halcyon days a kind of earthly
paradise. She endured her husband's occasional absence from this rural
home with perfect patience. These absences were rare and brief at first,
but afterwards grew longer and more frequent. Nor did she ever sigh for
any brighter or gayer life than this which they led together at the
Grange. In him were the beginning and end of her hopes and dreams; and so
long as he was pleased and contented, she was completely happy. It was
only when a change came in him--very slight at first, but still obvious
to his wife's tender watchful eyes--that her own happiness was clouded.
That change told her that whatever he might be to her, she was no longer
all the world to him. He loved her still, no doubt; but the bright
holiday-time of his love was over, and his wife's presence had no longer
the power to charm away every dreary thought. He was a man in whose
disposition there was a lurking vein of melancholy--a kind of chronic
discontent very common to men of whom it has been said that they might do
great things in the world, and who have succeeded in doing nothing.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Holbrook intended to keep his wife shut
away from the world in a lonely farm-house all her life. The place suited