and a womanly confidence in her expression of opinions that at times surprised him.  With her views on some subjects his own mind was far from being in agreement, and they often had warm arguments.  Occasionally, when her husband was at Ivy Cliff a difference of sentiment would arise between them.  Mr. Delancy noticed, when this was the case, that Irene always pressed her view with ardor, and that her husband, after a brief but pleasant combat, retired from the field.  He also noticed that in most cases, after this giving up of the contest by Hartley, he was more than usually quiet and seemed to be pondering things not wholly agreeable.

Mr. Delancy was gratified to see that there was no jarring between them.  But he failed not at the same time to notice something else that gave him uneasiness.  The warmth of feeling, the tenderness, the lover-like ardor which displayed itself in the beginning, no longer existed.  They did not even show that fondness for each other which is so beautiful a trait in young married partners.  And yet he could trace no signs of alienation.  The truth was, the action of their lives had been inharmonious.  Deep down in their hearts there was no defect of love.  But this love was compelled to hide itself away; and so, for the most part, it lay concealed from even their own consciousness.

During the second year of their married life there came a change of state in both Irene and her husband.  They had each grown weary of constraint when together.  It was irksome to be always on guard, lest some word, tone or act should be misunderstood.  In consequence, old collisions were renewed, and Hartley often grew impatient and even contemptuous toward his wife, when she ventured to speak of social progress, woman’s rights, or any of the kindred themes in which she still took a warm interest.  Angry retort usually followed on these occasions, and periods of coldness ensued, the effect of which was to produce states of alienation.

If a babe had come to soften the heart of Irene, to turn thought and feeling in a new direction, to awaken a mother’s love with all its holy tenderness, how different would all have been!—­different with her, and different with him.  There would then have been an object on which both could centre interest and affection, and thus draw lovingly together again, and feel, as in the beginning, heart beating to heart in sweet accordings.  They would have learned their love-lessons over again, and understood their meanings better.  Alas that the angels of infancy found no place in their dwelling!

With no central attraction at home, her thoughts stimulated by association with a class of intellectual, restless women, who were wandering on life’s broad desert in search of green places and refreshing springs, each day’s journey bearing them farther and farther away from landscapes of perpetual verdure, Irene grew more and more interested in subjects that lay for the most part entirely out of the range of