Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/176

138 husband that she might go home. This Mrs. Patterson undertook to do and succeeded in bringing about a complete reconciliation. She even persuaded the husband to forego a plan he had for confining his wife to her apartment for a period of penance, and by such persuasion so induced this man to allow sweetness and light to prevail that his home was thereafter a happy one. This was the second time in. her life that she performed the office of peacemaker for a woman who had been party to the desecration of her own home.

The summer months of 1866 were for Mary Baker a time of reconstructing and dedication of her life. Her husband had gone, gone forever. She could no longer in reason contemplate a life with him. He came back to ask forgiveness after the elopement; it was in his nature to do that, for to him there was no finality to the good-will he expected, however great his offense. But his wife did not receive him. “The same roof cannot shelter us,” she said quietly. “You may come in, certainly, if you desire, but in that case I must go elsewhere.” He stood fumbling with his hat upon the doorstep and then placed it upon his head. “Of what use would that be, Mary?” he faltered. “No, it is I who will go.”

Dr. Patterson thereafter roamed from town to town in New England, falling from the social standard of conduct on various occasions and losing social caste by degrees, until he was forbidden houses which had at first received him and, losing his practise when well begun in different towns, he at last