"He sailed for Europe a week ago, you know."
"Yes; and since then madame has been the belle of the ball. The old story—'When the cat is away, the mice will play.'"
"Sarah," said Philip, an hour later, "will you walk on the balcony with me? You are heated, and the air is balmy as Georgian breezes. It will do you good."
"Are you going to scold me?" she asked, archly, before she would take his arm.
"No. I have no right to do it if I had the disposition."
There was no moon; but the sky was strewed thickly with stars, and the white foam of the surf caught and held tremulously the sparkles from the bright watchers above. Philip did not appear disposed to converse, and Sarah waited for him to begin. Meanwhile, they strolled on and on, until the murmur of the ocean was louder than the music of the saloon band. The sea moaned to the stars, as it had done to the sunless July heavens on that day so memorable in the history of one of the pair—the day of shipwreck stories and a real shipwreck—none the less disastrous, that the treasures and their loss were hidden from all but the bereaved one.
To many it is appointed to lead two lives; to think and feel as well as to act a double part; to separate, as inexorably as human will can decree, past hopes and joys—past sorrows, and, if practicable, past memories from the thoughts and emotions of the to-day in which they exist. Thousands keep up the barrier until death ends the need of watchfulness and labor; the coffin-lid covers the faithful mask that has smiled so patiently and so long above an aching heart. Yet dammed up passion is a dangerous thing. If hearts were so constituted that they could be drained like pestilential marshes, the flood conducted off in harmless and straight channels, then, indeed, might hypocrisy rejoice, and sleek decorum sit down at ease. As it is, genteel propriety and refined reticence are perpetually endangered by the unforeseen swell of some intermittent spring, or the thawing of some ice-bound stream, that is liable to overleap or tear away the dike—ingulfing in an instant the elaborate structures years of toil have cheaply purchased.
Such was the moment when, withdrawing her hand from Philip's arm, Sarah struck suddenly—fiercely—upon her breast, and cried: "Oh! why cannot I die and end this misery!"
"Sarah!"
"I say I can bear it no longer! Others do not suffer thus! If they do, they die, or lose their reason. I will not endure it, I tell you!"