The face of Irene was strongly agitated for some moments; but she recovered herself and went on: 

“I am speaking of things that have hitherto been secrets of my own heart.  I could not bring them out even for you to look at, my dearest, truest, best of friends.  Now it seems as if I could not bear the weight of my heavy thoughts alone; as if, in admitting you beyond the veil, I might find strength to suffer, if not ease from pain.  There is no such thing as living our lives over again and correcting their great errors.  The past is an irrevocable fact.  Ah, if conscience would sleep, if struggles for a better life would make atonement for wrong—­then, as our years progress, we might lapse into tranquil states.  But gradually clearing vision increases the magnitude of a fault like mine, for its fatal consequences are seen in broader light.  There is a thought which has haunted me for a year past like a spectre.  It comes to me unbidden; sometimes to disturb the quiet of my lonely evenings, sometimes in the silent night-watches to banish sleep from my pillow; sometimes to place silence on my lips as I sit among cherished friends.  I never imagined that I would put this thought in words for any mortal ear; yet it is coming to my lips now, and I feel impelled to go on.  You believe that there are, as you call them ‘conjugal partners,’ or men and women born for each other, who, in a true marriage of souls, shall become eternally one.  They do not always meet in this life; nay, for the sake of that discipline which leads to purification, may form other and uncongenial ties in the world, and live unhappily; but in heaven they will draw together by a divinely-implanted attraction, and be there united for ever.  I have felt that something like this must be true; that every soul must have its counterpart.  The thought which has so haunted me is, that Hartley Emerson and unhappy I were born for each other.”

She paused and looked with a half-startled air upon Mrs. Everet to mark the effect of this revelation.  But Rose made no response and showed no surprise, however she might have been affected by the singular admission of her friend.

“It has been all in vain,” continued Irene “that I have pushed the thought aside—­called it absurd, insane, impossible—­back it would come and take its old place.  And, stranger still, out of facts that I educed to prove its fallacy would come corroborative suggestions.  I think it is well for my peace of mind that I have not been in the way of hearing about him or of seeing him.  Since we parted it has been as if a dark curtain had fallen between us; and, so far as I am concerned, that curtain has been lifted up but once or twice, and then only for a moment of time.  So all my thoughts of him are joined to the past.  Away back in that sweet time when the heart of girlhood first thrills with the passion of love are some memories that haunt my soul like dreams from Elysium.  He was, in my eyes,