he had turned and walked away up the lane under the birches. He
said nothing--then or at any other time. From that day no
reference to his wife or her concerns ever crossed his lips.

He went directly to the harbor, and shipped with Captain Barrett
for another voyage. When he came back from that in a month's
time, he bought a small house and had it hauled to the "Cove," a
lonely inlet from which no other human habitation was visible.
Between his sea voyages he lived there the life of a recluse;
fishing and playing his violin were his only employments. He
went nowhere and encouraged no visitors.

Isabella Spencer also had adopted the tactics of silence. When
the scandalized Chiswicks, Aunt Jane at their head, tried to
patch up the matter with argument and entreaty, Isabella met them
stonily, seeming not to hear what they said, and making no
response. She worsted them totally. As Aunt Jane said in
disgust, "What can you do with a woman who won't even TALK?"

Five months after David Spencer had been turned from his wife's
door, Rachel was born. Perhaps, if David had come to them then,
with due penitence and humility, Isabella's heart, softened by
the pain and joy of her long and ardently desired motherhood
might have cast out the rankling venom of resentment that had
poisoned it and taken him back into it. But David had not come;
he gave no sign of knowing or caring that his once longed-for
child had been born.

When Isabella was able to be about again, her pale face was
harder than ever; and, had there been about her any one