that I have observed in her
character, has not surprised me, because I was prepared for it in
this case by the tone of her letters.  Now that she is at home
again, I find her just as unwilling to enter into any details on
the subject of her married life as I had previously found her all
through the time of our separation, when we could only communicate
with each other by writing.  At the first approach I made to the
forbidden topic she put her hand on my lips with a look and
gesture which touchingly, almost painfully, recalled to my memory
the days of her girlhood and the happy bygone time when there were
no secrets between us.

"Whenever you and I are together, Marian," she said, "we shall
both be happier and easier with one another, if we accept my
married life for what it is, and say and think as little about it
as possible.  I would tell you everything, darling, about myself,"
she went on, nervously buckling and unbuckling the ribbon round my
waist, "if my  could only end there.  But they could
not--they would lead me into  about my husband too; and
now I am married, I think I had better avoid them, for his sake,
and for your sake