Scene after scene of her life came back as she searched to find some circumstance associated with that face.  Once and again she seemed on the point of laying hold of something, when the face itself vanished and she had that to recall, and the search to resume from the beginning.  In the process many painful memories arose, some, connected with her mother, unhappy in themselves, others, connected with her father, grown unhappy from her marriage; for thereby she had built a wall between her thoughts and her memories of him; and, if there should be a life beyond this, had hollowed a gulf between them forever.

Gradually her thoughts took another direction.—­Could it be that already the glamour had begun to disperse, the roses of love to wither, the magic to lose its force, the common look of things to return?  Paul was as kind, as courteous, as considerate as ever, and yet there was a difference.  Her heart did not grow wild, her blood did not rush to her face, when she heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs in the street, though she knew them instantly.  Sadder and sadder grew her thoughts as she walked along, careless whither.

Had she begun to cease loving?  No.  She loved better than she knew, but she must love infinitely better yet.  The first glow was gone—­already:  she had thought it would not go, and was miserable.  She recalled that even her honeymoon had a little disappointed her.  I would not be mistaken as implying that any of these her reflections had their origin in what was peculiar in the character, outlook, or speculation of herself or her husband.  The passion of love is but the vestibule—­the pylon—­to the temple of love.  A garden lies between the pylon and the adytum.  They that will enter the sanctuary must walk through the garden.  But some start to see the roses already withering, sit down and weep and watch their decay, until at length the aged flowers hang drooping all around them, and lo! their hearts are withered also, and when they rise they turn their backs on the holy of holies, and their feet toward the gate.

Juliet was proud of her Paul, and loved him as much as she was yet capable of loving.  But she had thought they were enough for each other, and already, although she was far from acknowledging it to herself, she had, in the twilight of her thinking, begun to doubt it.  Nor can she be blamed for the doubt.  Never man and woman yet succeeded in being all in all to each other.

It were presumption to say that a lonely God would be enough for Himself, seeing that we can know nothing of God but as He is our Father.  What if the Creator Himself is sufficient to Himself in virtue of His self-existent creatorship?  Let my reader think it out.  The lower we go in the scale of creation, the more independent is the individual.  The richer and more perfect each of a married pair is in the other relations of life, the more is each to the other.  For us, the children of eternal love, the very air our spirits breathe, and without which they can not live, is the eternal life; for us, the brothers and sisters of a countless family, the very space in which our souls can exist, is the love of each and every soul of our kind.