“And I will not go with you to any more of those horrid seances!� said Mrs. Wylie.
“Very well. I shall not compel you to do so. But this childish anger and lack of self-control is very distasteful to me. I hope I may not have a repetition of it.� Mr. Wylie arose and left the room, while his wife threw herself upon a sofa and shed tears of anger and grief over this experience of marital infelicity.
A small wedge may divide in halves a tree, but when divided no power on earth can unite them as closely as before; and little cracks in the soil of home life may form a place for germ deposits in which dissensions, strife, and all manner of unpleasantness are bred.
Mrs. Wylie would not have confessed to her dearest friends that her life the succeeding winter was less happy than before, but it was true she felt a growing estrangement between herself and husband.
He was, possibly, as kind and indulgent as ever, treating her as a fond parent might treat a wayward child, but she missed the old-time confidences and evening talks.
Probably there had never been that true unity of soul with soul that should constitute the real marriage, but Elinor Wylie’s husband had always seemed so proud of her, and fond, that until this winter she had felt no lack in his affection. But, alas, so small a thing will turn and divide a shallow stream, and when turned, how far apart the separate branches may run. And the ideal marriage of true unity of thought and purpose is so rarely consummated. Hence the world of divided lives.
Mrs. Wylie felt that they were drifting away from each other, and every wife knows what that may be. To feel the division growing wider and wider, deeper and more impassable, and be impotent to stop it.
The little coolnesses and differences which are at first made up with kisses of cementing power grow more frequent and bitter. The endearing word is less frequently given. By and by the good-by kiss is forgotten when he leaves her, the salute of greeting omitted when he returns, and each heart grows harder and harder, bitterer and bitterer, until at last he thinks of her but to censure and condemn, she of him but to dislike and fear. And finally, as Byron writes, “Hating one another, wishing one another dead, they live respectably as man and wife.�
Only the first act of this drama of life had as yet come to Mrs. Wylie, but the little imp of unrest had crept into her breast, and the quiet happiness of other days was no more. Horace Wylie spent less time at home than formerly, and when there buried himself in books and papers, and thus the little woman was left much to herself to seek pleasure and excitement where she could.
The one thing which caused Mrs. Wylie more heart-ache than any other was her husband’s growing interest and adherence to the creed of Dr. Lyman. Although that subject was tabooed between them, she knew he regularly attended seances during the winter and no longer even asked her to accompany him.