“If you dare to mention that name again in connection with mine,” she said, turning almost fiercely upon him, “I will—­”

She caught the words and held them back in the silence of her wildly reeling thoughts.

“Say on!”

Emerson was cool, but not sane.  It was madness to press his excited young wife now.  Had he lost sense and discrimination?  Could he not see, in her strong, womanly indignation, the signs of innocence?  Fool! fool! to thrust sharply at her now!

“My father!” came in a sudden gush of strong feeling from the lips of Irene, as the thought of him whose name was thus ejaculated came into her mind.  She struck her hands together, and stood like one in wild bewilderment.  “My father!” she added, almost mournfully; “oh, that I had never left you!”

“It would have been better for you and better for me.”  No, he was not sane, else would no such words have fallen from his lips.

Irene, with a slight start and a slight change in the expression of her countenance, looked up at her husband: 

“You think so?” Emerson was a little surprised at the way in which Irene put this interrogation.  He looked for a different reply.

“I have said it,” was his cold answer.

“Well.”  She said no more, but looked down and sat thinking for the space of more than a minute.

“I will go back to Ivy Cliff.”  She looked up, with something strange in the expression of her face.  It was a blank, unfeeling, almost unmeaning expression.

“Well.”  It was Emerson’s only response.

“Well; and that is all?” Her tones were so chilling that they came over the spirit of her husband like the low waves of an icy wind.

“No, that is not all.”  What evil spirit was blinding his perceptions?  What evil influence pressing him on to the brink of ruin?

“Say on.”  How strangely cold and calm she remained!  “Say on,” she repeated.  Was there none to warn him of danger?

“If you go a third time to your father—­” He paused.

“Well?” There was not a quiver in her low, clear, icy tone.

“You must do it with your eyes open, and in full view of the consequences.”

“What are the consequences?”

Beware, rash man!  Put a seal on your lips!  Do not let the thought so sternly held find even a shadow of utterance!

“Speak, Hartley Emerson.  What are the consequences?”

“You cannot return!” It was said without a quiver of feeling.

“Well.”  She looked at him with an unchanged countenance, steadily, coldly, piercingly.

“I have said the words, Irene; and they are no idle utterances.  Twice you have left me, but you cannot do it a third time and leave a way open between us.  Go, then, if you will; but, if we part here, it must be for ever!”

The eyes of Irene dropped slowly.  There was a slight change in the expression of her face.  Her hands moved one within the other nervously.