himself.  She felt also that his letters were in a sense perfunctory, and gave her only the surface of his life.  She sought in vain in them for those evidences of spontaneous love, of delight in writing to her of all persons in the world, the eagerness of the lover that she recalled in letters written in other days.  However affectionate in expression, these were duty letters.  Edith was not alone.  She had no lack of friends, who came and went in the common round of social exchange, and for many of them she had a sincere affection.  And there were plenty of relatives on the father’s and on the mother’s side.  But for the most part they were old-fashioned, home-keeping New-Yorkers, who were sufficient to themselves, and cared little for the set into which Edith’s marriage had more definitely placed her.  In any real trouble she would not have lacked support.  She was deemed fortunate in her marriage, and in her apparent serene prosperity it was believed that she was happy.  If she had had mother or sister or brother, it is doubtful if she would have made either a confidant of her anxieties, but high-spirited and self-reliant as she was, there were days when she longed with intolerable heartache for the silent sympathy of a mother’s presence.

It is singular how lonely a woman of this nature can be in a gay and friendly world.  She had her interests, to be sure.  As she regained her strength she took up her social duties, and she tried to resume her studies, her music, her reading, and she occupied herself more and more with the charities and the fortunes of her friends who were giving their lives to altruistic work.  But there was a sense of unreality in all this.  The real thing was the soul within, the longing, loving woman whose heart was heavy and unsatisfied.  Jack was so lovable, he had in his nature so much nobility, if the world did not kill it, her life might be so sweet, and so completely fulfill her girlish dreams.  All these schemes of a helpful, altruistic life had been in her dream, but how empty it was without the mutual confidence, the repose in the one human love for which she cared.

Though she was not alone, she had no confidant.  She could have none.  What was there to confide?  There was nothing to be done.  There was no flagrant wrong or open injustice.  Some women in like circumstances become bitter and cynical.  Others take their revenge in a career reckless, but within social conventions, going their own way in a sort of matrimonial truce.  These are not noticeable tragedies.  They are things borne with a dumb ache of the heart.  There are lives into which the show of spring comes, but without the song of birds or the scent of flowers.  They are endured bravely, with a heroism for which the world does not often give them credit.  Heaven only knows how many noble women-noble in this if in nothing else—­carry through life this burden of an unsatisfied heart, mocked by the outward convention of love.