Ah, how little is there in worldly possessions, be it large or small, to compensate for a troubled, self-accusing spirit! how little to throw in the balance against the heavy weight of conscious villany! How tenderly, how truly, how devotedly had Edward Claire loved the young wife of his bosom, since the hour the pulses of their spirits first beat in joyful unity! How eager had he ever been to turn his face homeward when the shadows of evening began to fall! But now he lingered--lingered, though all the business of the day was over.

The thought of his wife created no quick impulse to be away.

He felt more like shunning her presence.

He even for a time indulged a motion of anger toward her for what he mentally termed her morbid sensitiveness in regard to others' right--her dreamy ideal of human perfection.
"We are in the world, and we must do as it does.

We must take it as it is, not as it should be." So he mused with himself, in a self-approving argument.