CHAPTER VII


One Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing the
summer seas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under
the awning of the after-deck. There was silence, for each was busy
with his own thoughts. These seasons of silence had insensibly
been growing more and more frequent of late; the old nearness and
cordiality were waning. Sally's terrible revelation had done its work;
Aleck had tried hard to drive the memory of it out of her mind,
but it would not go, and the shame and bitterness of it were
poisoning her gracious dream life. She could see now (on Sundays)
that her husband was becoming a bloated and repulsive Thing.
She could not close her eyes to this, and in these days she
no longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could help it.

But she--was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew she was not.
She was keeping a secret from him, she was acting dishonorably
toward him, and many a pang it was costing her. SHE WAS BREAKING
THE COMPACT, AND CONCEALING IT FROM HIM. Under strong temptation
she had gone into business again; she had risked their whole
fortune in a purchase of all the railway systems and coal and steel
companies in the country on a margin, and she was now trembling,
every Sabbath hour, lest through some chance word of hers he find
it out. In her misery and remorse for this treachery she could
not keep her heart from going out to him in pity; she was filled
with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and contented,
and ever suspecting. Never suspecting--trusting her with a perfect
and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread a possible
calamity of so devastating a--