He went slowly homeward, haunted by more vivid remembrances of his early marriage than any that had troubled him for many years. The dead past had buried its dead; but there is no stone rolled upon the sepulcher to make us sure of no resurrection. Suppose Philip had been Sophy's son! How widely different his training and his whole character must have been! How different he himself would be at this moment, if Sophy had been his constant, intimate companion in the place of Margaret. He thought of it with a shudder of disgust. His love for Margaret had never known decrease or ebb; it had grown stronger and deeper every year, but there was an element of almost sacred awe mingled with it. She was as much above him as Sophy had been below him. Not that she felt this herself; there was always in her a deference to his will which a prouder woman would not have shown. But he recognized her as a purer, nobler, truer soul than himself. His marriage with her was no more an equal one than his marriage with Sophy. To-day he felt more nearly on a level with Sophy than with Margaret.
She was standing in the pretty oriel window of her sitting room as he approached the house, and smiled down upon him with something of sadness in her smile, as he stood below looking up to her. She had never seemed more lovely in his eyes, or more distant. After all their married life of twenty-two years he knew himself a stranger to her, and he felt that he could get no nearer to her. What icy barrier was it existing between them, growing denser and stronger year after year, and which could not be melted by the warmth of their love? For they loved one another—Sidney did not doubt that; Margaret's first love had been his. Yet there was a great gulf between them; and his spirit could not go to her, nor hers come to him.
He went upstairs and received a fond welcome from her, as he sat down beside her on a sofa. She laid her hand on his, and he lifted it to his lips; and then he felt her kiss upon his forehead, a caressing, almost maternal touch, such as she might have given to her son Philip. Both of these beloved ones were wounded, and both came to her for consolation. Sidney told her what old Andrew Goldsmith had been saying.
"Perhaps he is right," said Margaret thoughtfully; "we should remember that Philip is something more than our son. He is a man and has rights with which we ought not to interfere. Dearest, it is a bitter disappointment to me to think of Phyllis as my boy's wife. But who can tell? If she truly loves him it may be her salvation; and if he truly loves her, no one else, not an angel from heaven, could be his wife as she would be, and as I am yours. We may be striving against God's will, whose love for Philip is infinitely greater and wiser than ours can be."
"But, my darling," he remonstrated, "you speak of God's will; and all this is but the outcome of Laura's machinations. That is only too plain. If I believed it to be a simple, true, enduring love on both sides, I would not oppose it so strongly. And it would be an extreme mortification to let Laura triumph."
"We must not think of that," she said, smiling. "I have felt it, too, Sidney; but the mortification has passed over. It is natural enough they should love one another; they are both very attractive, and they have seen no one else. Let us do as Andrew suggests, fix a time for them to wait and test their attachment. And let Philip have a year or two abroad, as you had when you were his age. His mind will be enlarged. We have kept him too much at home; and home has been too dear for him to care to wander from it. But he is not so happy now, and he will be willing to go away for awhile."
"He shall," assented Sidney; "and I will make him promise not to correspond with Phyllis during his absence."
But Philip would make no such promise. He maintained that it was an unworthy course to adopt toward his future wife. He was willing to wait any reasonable number of years that his parents thought right to ask from him, but in no way would he separate himself from Phyllis. It would be easier, he declared, to cut off his right hand, or pluck out his right eye. He left home for a long and indefinite absence, and his letters came to Phyllis as regularly and as frequently as to his mother. To his father he did not write.