Turning from the window, he paced the floor with anguish keen as
though she had gone from him for ever. What obstinacy, what
unreasoning wilfulness--and what would come of it? He spent the long
night brooding over his great sorrow, the root of which was the fear
that his dear wife did not belong to Christ, for beloved her through
all her unloveliness. "Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved
the church." His love had something in it of the divine pity and
patience that our blessed Lord feels for his sinning, stumbling, and
exasperating children.

Mrs. Eldred was not that type of womankind who spent their wrath in
tears and reproaches. When she was angry, she was unapproachably so,
as frigid as an iceberg. The crisis had come. Her husband had dared
to command.

The next morning there was not the turn of an eyelid that could be
construed into penitence. A brawling woman is but little less
endurable than a perfectly silent one. You may almost as well "flee
to the house-top" from one as the other. What few words were spoken
by Mr. Eldred at the breakfast table received no replies.

In the course of the forenoon he went to fulfil an engagement a few
miles in the country, where he was detained till late in the day. He
sat in his study in the gathering twilight longing for, but not
expecting, a word from his wife of contrition and conciliation. He
was summoned to tea, but no wife appeared. After a little he went in
search of her. She was not in the house. It was growing dark. He was
perplexed and anxious. Again he went to their room, hoping to find
some explanation of the strange absence. On the mantel lay a note