But even strong men are weak in woman’s toils, and Hartley Emerson was a captive.

There was to be a pleasure-party on one of the steamers that cut the bright waters of the fair Hudson, and Emerson and the maiden, whose face was now his daily companion, were to be of the number.  He felt that the time had come for him to speak if he meant to speak at all—­to say what was in his thought, or turn aside and let another woo and win the lovely being imagination had already pictured as the sweet companion of his future home.  The night that preceded this excursion was a sleepless one for Hartley Emerson.  Questions and doubts, scarcely defined in his thoughts before, pressed themselves upon him and demanded a solution.  The past came up with a vividness not experienced for years.  In states of semi-consciousness—­half-sleeping, half-waking—­there returned to him such life-like realizations of events long ago recorded in his memory, and covered over with the dust of time, that he started from them to full wakefulness, with a heart throbbing in wild tumult.  Once there was presented so vivid a picture of Irene that for some moments he was unable to satisfy himself that all these ten years of loneliness were not a dream.  He saw her as she stood before him on that ever-to-be-remembered night and said, “I go!” Let us turn back and read the record of her appearance as he saw her then and now: 

“She had raised her eyes from the floor, and turned them full upon her husband.  Her face was not so pale.  Warmth had come back to the delicate skin, flushing it with beauty.  She did not stand before him an impersonation of anger, dislike or rebellion.  There was not a repulsively attitude or expression.  No flashing of the eyes, nor even the cold, diamond glitter seen a little while before.  Slowly turning away, she left the room.  But to her husband she seemed still standing there, a lovely vision.  There had fallen, in that instant of time, a sunbeam, which fixed the image upon his memory in imperishable colors.”

Emerson groaned as he fell back upon his pillow and shut his eyes.  What would he not then have given for one full draught of Lethe’s fabled waters.

Morning came at last, its bright beams dispersing the shadows of night; and with it came back the warmth of his new passion and his purpose on that day, if the opportunity came, to end all doubt, by offering the maiden his hand—­we do not say heart, for of that he was not the full possessor.

The day opened charmingly, and the pleasure-party were on the wing betimes.  Emerson felt a sense of exhilaration as the steamer passed out from her moorings and glided with easy grace along the city front.  He stood upon her deck with a maiden’s hand resting on his arm, the touch of which, though light as the pressure of a flower, was felt with strange distinctness.  The shadows of the night, which had brooded so darkly over his spirit, were gone, and only a dim remembrance of the gloom remained.  Onward the steamer glided, sweeping by the crowded line of buildings and moving grandly along, through palisades of rock on one side and picturesque landscapes on the other, until bolder scenery stretched away and mountain barriers raised themselves against the blue horizon.