The necessity of a coming struggle with her husband terrified her; in her eyes he was so great, so majestic, that the mere prospect of his anger made her tremble as at a vision of the divine wrath.

She must now depart from the submission she had sacredly practised as a wife.

The interests of her children compelled her to oppose, in his most cherished tastes, the man she idolized.

Must she not daily force him back to common matters from the higher realms of Science; drag him forcibly from a smiling future and plunge him into a materialism hideous to artists and great men?
To her, Balthazar Claes was a Titan of science, a man big with glory; he could only have forgotten her for the riches of a mighty hope.

Then too, was he not profoundly wise?
she had heard him talk with such good sense on every subject that he must be sincere when he declared he worked for the glory and prosperity of his family.