sweetness to her inmost soul. Mingled with it was an acute pain, a
profound regret, a sad humility. Not hers, alas! the joyful pride, the
full content, of a heart which is conscious in its sweetest depths that
it gives as much as it receives.

This was all. She had done nothing wrong, nothing unworthy of either
herself or Dr. Grey; nothing but what hundreds of women do every day,
and neither blame themselves nor are blamed by others. She had but
suffered a new footstep to enter her young life's garden, without having
had the courage to say of one little corner in it, "Do not tread there,
it is a grave." Only a grave; a very harmless grave now, tricked with
innocent, girlish flowers, but still containing the merest handful of dust.
It would never corrupt, and might even serve to fertilize that simple
heart, which, out of its very simplicity, had made for itself a passing
idol out of what was essentially fake and base, which would have
shortly crumbled to pieces out of its own baseness, had not Fate--or
Providence--with kindly cruel hand forever thrown it down. Still, this
was a grave, and her husband did not know it was there.

Nobody ever had known. The day of delusion had been so short, and
the only relics left of it were those four letters, burnt by herself on her
marriage morning. The whole story, occupying in all only four weeks,
had gone by exactly like a dream, and she had awakened--awakened to
find out what love really was, or what it might have been.

She wept, not loudly, but quietly, till she dared not weep any more. A
sudden thought made her struggle at once for composure, and try to
efface every external trace of tears.

"I am Dr. Grey's wife," she said to herself and resolved that the grand