"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"

     "Calm?--no: but happy--to the heart's core."

     I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.

     "Give me your confidence, Jane," he said: "relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?--that I shall not prove a good husband?"

     "It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."

     "Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?--of the new life into which you are passing?"

     "No."

     "You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I want an explanation."

     "Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?"