We had had grief and bereavement.  Mr. Lewis had been very ill, and very near death, with the fever of the country.  It had left traces on his worn face, and thinned his already thin enough figure.

But a greater change had come over Mrs. Lewis.  Personally, she was fuller and handsomer than ever.  She had the same grace in every motion, the same lulling music in her sweet voice.  But a soul seemed to be born into that fine body.  The brown eyes were deeper, and the voice had thrills of feeling and sentiment.  For all that, she had the same incompleteness that she had when I last saw her, and an inharmoniousness that was felt by the hearer whenever she spoke.  It was very odd, this impression I constantly had of her; but they were to remain in Boston through the winter, and I supposed time would develop the mystery to me.

X.

One evening, soon after Lulu’s return, for she soon took up her old habits of intimacy, she sat listlessly by the fire, holding her two hands in her lap, as usual, and not even dawdling at netting.  Perhaps the still evening and the quiet room induced confidence, or she may have felt the effect of my “receptivity,” as she called it. (She always insisted that she could not help telling me everything.) She turned away abruptly from the fire, saying,—­

“Do you know I don’t love William a particle,—­not the smallest atom?”

“I hope you are only talking nonsense,” said I, rising, and ringing for lights; “but it is painful for me to hear you.  Don’t!  I beg!”

“No, it isn’t nonsense.  It is the simple truth.  And it is best you should know it.  Because,—­you don’t want me to be a living lie, do you?  To the world I can keep up the old seeming.  But it is better you should know the truth.”

“There I differ from you entirely, Lulu.  If you are so sadly unfortunate, so wretched, as not to love your husband, it is too painful and serious a matter lightly to be talked of.  It is a matter for grievous lamentation,—­a matter between your conscience and your God.  I don’t think any friend can help you; and if not, of course you can have no motive in confiding it.”

She had the same old look, as if she would say, “Anan!” but presently added,—­

“He cares only for himself,—­not at all for me.  Don’t I see that every day?  Am I but the plume in his cap? but the lace on his sleeve? but the jewel in his linen?  Whatever I might have felt for him, I am sure I have no need to feel now; and I repeat to you, I should not care at all if I were never again to lay my eyes on him!”

I shuddered to hear this talk.  It was said, however, without anger, and with the air rather of a simple child who thought it right not to have false pretences.  Her frankness, if it had been united with deep feeling, would have touched me exceedingly.  As it was, I was bewildered, yet only anxious to avoid explanations, which it seemed to me would only increase the evil.