“We needn’t return there,” she replied. She said this, notwithstanding her own desire to go back was very strong. “In Cincinnati, artists are encouraged. We can go there.”
“Yes, or to one of the cities lower down the river. Any thing rather than return to the East with your property lessened a single dollar.”
“It is wrong for you to feel so, Alfred—very wrong,” said Clara. “We ought always to let a conviction of having acted from right motives sustain us in every position in life. Here, and only here, is the true mental balance.”
Alas for Ellison! the lack of this very conviction was at the groundwork of his inquietude. The property that now caused him so much trouble was the first thing that drew him toward his wife; and all the alloy that had mixed itself with his happiness came from this source. Had she not been the possessor of a dollar, and had he been drawn toward her for her virtues alone, their minds would have flowed together as one, and, in the most perfect union, they would have met and overcome whatever difficulties presented themselves. But all was embarrassment now, rendered more oppressive through the morbid pride of the young man, who felt every moment as if a window were about to open in his breast, so that his wife could see the baseness of which he had been guilty. This very effort at concealment but awakened a suspicion of what was there.
The conversation continued, Alfred getting in no better state of mind, until Clara became so hurt, or rather distressed, by many things said by her husband, that she could not control her feelings and gave vent to them in tears. Thus, as week after week went by, the causes of unhappiness rather increased than diminished.
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CHAPTER VI.
Ellison had been in D—— three months, and was about leaving for Cincinnati, when his lawyer called on him, and stated that he was authorized by the opposing counsel to say, that the plaintiffs in the case were willing to withdraw their suit if one hundred acres of the land in question were relinquished.
“At the same time,” remarked the lawyer, in giving this information, “it is but right for me to state my belief that the offer comes as the result of a conviction that the claim urged for the ownership of the property has no chance of a favorable termination.”
“Yet the suit may be continued for two or three years,” said Ellison.