Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/215

Rh overshadowed for the time being matters of mere sentiment. With the memory of another correspondence from which love had gradually disappeared, still fresh, she felt this change bitterly, and reproached Godwin for it in very plain language.

This misunderstanding, however, was not of long duration. The "little rift" in their case never widened to make their life-music mute. Godwin returned to London, his love in no wise diminished, and all ill-feeling and doubts were completely effaced from Mary's mind. His shortcomings were, after all, not due to any change in his affections, nor to the slightest suspicion of satiety. By writing long letters with careful description of everything he saw and did, he was treating Mary as he would have desired to be treated himself. His "icy philosophy," which made him so undemonstrative, was not altogether to her liking, but it was incomparably better than the warmth of a man like Imlay, who was too indifferent as to the individuality of the object of his demonstrations. The uprightness of Godwin precluded all possibility of infidelity, and once Mary's first disappointment at some new sign of his coldness was over, her confidence in him was unabated. After this short interruption to their semi-domestic life, they both resumed their old habits. Their separate establishments were still kept up, their social amusements continued, though Mary, because of the condition of her health, could not now enter into them quite so freely, and the little notes again began to pass between them. These were as amicable as they had ever been.

But a short period of happiness now remained to them. Mary expected to be confined about the