beginning of troubles.

Alone with his own thoughts, an hour had not elapsed before Mr. Lane
half repented of his conduct in taking so unyielding a position. A
conviction forced itself upon his mind that he had gone too far and
was asking too much; and he wished that he had not been quite so
exacting in his declarations to Mr. Edmondson. But, having made
them, his false pride of consistency prompted him to adhere to what
he had said.

The night passed in broken and troubled sleep; and morning found him
supremely wretched. Yet resentment still formed a part of Mr. Lane's
feelings. He was angry with his wife, whom he had driven from his
side, and was in no mood to bend in order to effect a
reconciliation. At mid-day he returned from his business, hoping to
find her at home. But his house was still desolate. With the evening
he confidently expected her, but she was not there. Anxiously he
sat, hour after hour, looking for another visit from Mr. Edmondson,
but he came not again.

In leaving her husband's house, Mrs. Lane had gone, as has been
seen, to the house of a friend. Mrs. Edmondson was an old school
companion, between whom and herself had continued to exist, as they
grew up, the tenderest relations. When she turned from her husband,
she fled, with an instinct of affection and sympathy, to this
friend, and poured her tears in a gild agony of affliction upon her
bosom. In leaving her husband, she was not governed by a sudden
caprice; nor was the act intended to humble him to her feet. Nothing
of this was in her mind. He had trenched upon her province as a wife
and mother; interfered with her freedom as an individual; and, at