Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/291



exceedingly surprised to find how greatly I enjoyed the return to the quiet home life of the Temple, and I fancied that it was no less grateful to Angel. My enjoyment of it opened to my mental vision yet further vistas of domesticity in my nature, of which I had never dreamed. The constraint which had fallen on us after her fatal act of doing her hair up still lingered; I had not yet grown quite used to her change from a child to a woman, nor do I think that she was yet quite at ease in the new part. But I could see that the strangeness was wearing off little by little, and that in time we should settle down in the new relation. She was still afflicted by fits of brooding and gloom; but the cruise seemed to have blown her head clearer of cobwebs, and such fits were rarer.

We were all of us hurt by the duplicity of Gutermann. We could not get over the fact that he had obtained our sympathy and compassion under false pretences, and that our sorrow for his impending misfortunes had lessened our pleasure in