reproach,--

"You promised Jean to be kind to me, and you are cruel; for when I ask
for love, you give me jewels, books, or flowers, as you would give a
pettish child a toy, and go away as if you were weary of me. Oh, it is
not right, Sir! and I cannot, no, I will not bear it!"

If she had spared reproaches, deserved though they were, and humbly
pleaded to be loved, I should have been more just and gentle; but her
indignant words, the sharper for their truth, roused the despotic spirit
of the man, and made me sternest when I should have been most kind.

"Effie," I said, looking coldly up into her troubled face, "I have given
you the right to be thus frank with me; but before you exercise that
right, let me tell you what may silence your reproaches and teach you
to know me better. I desired to adopt you as my child; Jean would not
consent to that, but bid me marry you, and so give you a home, and win
for myself a companion who should make that home less solitary. I could
protect you in no other way, and I married you. I meant it kindly,
Effie; for I pitied you,--ay, and loved you, too, as I hoped I had fully
proved."

"You have, Sir,--oh, you have! But I hoped I might in time be more to
you than a dear child," sighed Effie, while softer tears flowed as she
spoke.

"Effie, I told Jean I was a hard, cold man,"--and I was one as those
words passed my lips. "I told her I was unfitted to make a wife happy.
But she said you would be content with what I could offer; and so I gave
you all I had to bestow. It was not enough; yet I cannot make it more.