"You too have suffered, I suppose."
"I suffered much, at first."
"When was that?"
"Two years ago; and two years hence you will be as calm as I am now,—and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man, and free to act as you please."
Something like a smile, but a very bitter one, crossed his face for a moment.
"You have not been happy lately?" he said with a kind of effort to regain composure, and a determination to waive the further discussion of his own calamity.
"Happy!" I repeated, almost provoked at such a question—"Could I be so, with such a husband?"
"I have noticed a change in your appearance, since the first years of your marriage," pursued he: "I observed it to—to that infernal demon," he muttered between his teeth—"and he said it was your own sour temper that was eating away your bloom: it was making you
