The future was very gloomy for this young woman.  She lived in constant apprehension of some disaster.  This presentiment was in her soul as a contagion is in the air, but she had strength of mind and will to disguise her anguish beneath a smile.  Juana had ceased to think of herself.  She used her influence to make Diard resign his various pretensions and to show him, as a haven, the peaceful and consoling life of home.  Evils came from society—­why not banish it?  In his home Diard found peace and respect; he reigned there.  She felt herself strong to accept the trying task of making him happy,—­he, a man dissatisfied with himself.  Her energy increased with the difficulties of life; she had all the secret heroism necessary to her position; religion inspired her with those desires which support the angel appointed to protect a Christian soul—­occult poesy, allegorical image of our two natures!

Diard abandoned his projects, closed his house to the world, and lived in his home.  But here he found another reef.  The poor soldier had one of those eccentric souls which need perpetual motion.  Diard was one of the men who are instinctively compelled to start again the moment they arrive, and whose vital object seems to be to come and go incessantly, like the wheels mentioned in Holy Writ.  Perhaps he felt the need of flying from himself.  Without wearying of Juana, without blaming Juana, his passion for her, rendered tranquil by time, allowed his natural character to assert itself.  Henceforth his days of gloom were more frequent, and he often gave way to southern excitement.  The more virtuous a woman is and the more irreproachable, the more a man likes to find fault with her, if only to assert by that act his legal superiority.  But if by chance she seems really imposing to him, he feels the need of foisting faults upon her.  After that, between man and wife, trifles increase and grow till they swell to Alps.

But Juana, patient and without pride, gentle and without that bitterness which women know so well how to cast into their submission, left Diard no chance for planned ill-humor.  Besides, she was one of those noble creatures to whom it is impossible to speak disrespectfully; her glance, in which her life, saintly and pure, shone out, had the weight of a fascination.  Diard, embarrassed at first, then annoyed, ended by feeling that such high virtue was a yoke upon him.  The goodness of his wife gave him no violent emotions, and violent emotions were what he wanted.  What myriads of scenes are played in the depths of his souls, beneath the cold exterior of lives that are, apparently, commonplace!  Among these dramas, lasting each but a short time, though they influence life so powerfully and are frequently the forerunners of the great misfortune doomed to fall on so many marriages, it is difficult to choose an example.  There was a scene, however, which particularly marked the moment when in the life of this husband and wife estrangement began.  Perhaps it may also serve to explain the finale of this narrative.