Effects of the Storm

"That she is an attractive and highly accomplished woman."

"And the one who reaches your ideal of a wife?"

"No, ma'am," was the unhesitating answer, and made in so emphatic a
tone that there was no mistaking his sincerity. There was a change
in his countenance and manner. He looked unusually serious.

The lady tried to rally him, but he had come in too sober a state of
mind for pleasant trifling on this subject, of all others.

"My kind, good friend," he said, "I owe you many thanks for the
interest you have taken in me, and for your efforts to get me a
companion. But I do not intend to marry."

"So you have said--"

"Pardon me for interrupting you." Mr. Emerson checked the light
speech that was on her tongue. "I am going to say to you some things
that have never passed my lips before. You will understand me; this
I know, or I would not let a sentence come into utterance. And I
know more, that you will not make light of what to me is sacred."

The lady was sobered in a moment.

"To make light of what to you is sacred would be impossible," she
replied.

"I believe it, and therefore I am going to speak of things that are
to me the saddest of my life, and yet are coming to involve the
holiest sentiments. I have more than one reason for desiring now to
let another look below the quiet surface; and I will lift the veil
for your eyes alone. You know that I was married nearly twenty years
ago, and that my wife separated herself from me in less than three
years after our union; and you also know that the separation was
made permanent by a divorce. This is all that you or any other one
knows, so far as I have made communication on the subject; and I
have reason to believe that she who was my wife has been as reserved
in the matter as myself.