indeed, the struggle had only been loyalty to a lost cause.
His calm assent to his wife's ultimatum left her a little blank;
but in the immediate excitement of removal, in the thrill of
martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not last.
What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand.
He received the protests of his family in stolid silence;
when the venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him,
he smiled; when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said
he shouldn't wonder. When the minister, egged on by distracted
Hall relatives, remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was
doing what he believed to be his duty, "and if it seems to be a duty,
I can't help myself; you see that, don't you?" he said, anxiously.
But that was practically all he found to say; for the most part
he was silent. Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not
the slightest idea of the agonies of mortification which he suffered;
her imagination told her, truly enough, what angry relatives
and pleasantly horrified neighbors said about her, and the abuse
exhilarated her very much; but her imagination stopped there.
It did not give her the family's opinion of her husband; it did
not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the post-office;
it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:

"So Squire Hall's wife's got tired of him? Rather live
with the Shakers than him!" "I like Hall, but I haven't
any sympathy with him," the doctor said; "what in thunder did
he let her go gallivanting off to visit the Shakers for?
Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a bee in her bonnet.
He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have.
I wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family!
Well, for an obstinate man (and he IS obstinate, you know),