For the next three years of my life has nothing to show but the
alternation of such honeymooning as never was before with a dull but
contented prison life, not one hour of which is worth recording, or even
remembering, except as a foil to its alternative.

It had but one hour for me, the bed hour, and fortunately that was an
early one.

Healthily tired in body, blissfully expectant in mind, I would lie on my
back, with my hands duly crossed under my head, and sleep would soon
steal over me like balm; and before I had forgotten who and what and
where I really was, I would reach the goal on which my will was intent,
and waking up, find my body in another place, in another garb, on a
couch by an enchanted window, still with my arms crossed behind my
head--in the sacramental attitude.

Then would I stretch my limbs and slip myself free of my outer life, as
a new-born butterfly from the durance of its self-spun cocoon, with an
unutterable sense of youth and strength and freshness and felicity; and
opening my eyes I would see on the adjacent couch the form of Mary, also
supine, but motionless and inanimate as a statue. Nothing could wake her
to life till the time came: her hours were somewhat later, and she was
still in the toils of the outer life I had just left behind me.

And these toils, in her case, were more complicated than in mine.
Although she had given up the world, she had many friends and an immense
correspondence. And then, being a woman endowed with boundless health
and energy, splendid buoyancy of animal spirits, and a great capacity
for business, she had made for herself many cares and occupations.