CHAPTER X.
AFTER THE STORM.
_AFTER_ the storm.

And they were reconciled.

The clouds rolled back; the sun came out again with his radiant smiles and genial warmth.
But was nothing broken?
nothing lost?
Did each flower in the garden of love lift its head as bravely as before?
In every storm of passion something is lost.

Anger is a blind fury, who tramples ruthlessly on tenderest and holiest things.

Alas for the ruin that waits upon her footsteps! The day that followed this night of reconciliation had many hours of sober introversion of thought for both Emerson and his wife; hours in which memory reproduced language, conduct and sentiments that could not be dwelt upon without painful misgivings for the future.
They understood each other too well to make light account of things said and done, even in anger.
In going over, as Irene did many times, the language used by her husband on the night before, touching their relation as man and wife, and his prerogative, she felt the old spirit of revolt arising.