“War ends, and he’s returning

      Early; yea,

   The evening next to-morrow’s!”—

      —This I say

To her, whom I suspiciously survey,

   Holding my husband’s letter

      To her view.—

   She glanced at it but lightly,

      And I knew

That one from him that day had reached her too.

   There was no time for scruple;

      Secretly

   I filched her missive, conned it,

      Learnt that he

Would lodge with her ere he came home to me.

   To reach the port before her,

      And, unscanned,

   There wait to intercept them

      Soon I planned:

That, in her stead, I might before him stand.

   So purposed, so effected;

      At the inn

   Assigned, I found her hidden:—

      O that sin

Should bear what she bore when I entered in!

   Her heavy lids grew laden

      With despairs,

   Her lips made soundless movements

      Unawares,

While I peered at the chamber hired as theirs.

   And as beside its doorway,

      Deadly hued,

   One inside, one withoutside

      We two stood,

He came—my husband—as she knew he would.

   No pleasurable triumph

      Was that sight!

   The ghastly disappointment

      Broke them quite.

What love was theirs, to move them with such might!

   “Madam, forgive me!” said she,

      Sorrow bent,

   “A child—I soon shall bear him . . .

      Yes—I meant

To tell you—that he won me ere he went.”

   Then, as it were, within me

      Something snapped,

   As if my soul had largened:

      Conscience-capped,

I saw myself the snarer—them the trapped.

   “My hate dies, and I promise,

      Grace-beguiled,”

   I said, “to care for you, be

      Reconciled;

And cherish, and take interest in the child.”

   Without more words I pressed him

      Through the door

   Within which she stood, powerless

      To say more,

And closed it on them, and downstairward bore.

   “He joins his wife—my sister,”

      I, below,

   Remarked in going—lightly—

      Even as though

All had come right, and we had arranged it so . . .

   As I, my road retracing,

      Left them free,

   The night alone embracing

      Childless me,

I held I had not stirred God wrothfully.