As he thus spoke, as if to avoid the possibility of any further discussion, he turned abruptly from her, and left the room.

The extreme agitation which she had just undergone combined with her physical delicacy to bring on an hysterical attack; and poor Mrs. Marston, with an aching head and a heavy heart, lay down upon her bed.  She had swallowed an opiate, and before ten o’clock upon that night, an eventful one as it proved, she had sunk into a profound slumber.

Some hours after this, she became in a confused way conscious of her husband’s presence in the room.  He was walking, with an agitated mien, up and down the chamber, and casting from time to time looks of great trouble toward the bed where she lay.  Though the presence of her husband was a strange and long unwonted occurrence there, at such an hour, and though she felt the strangeness of the visit, the power of the opiate overwhelmed her so, that she could only see this apparition gliding slowly back and forward before her, with the passive wonder and curiosity with which one awaits the issue of an interesting dream.

For a time she lay once more in an uneasy sleep; but still, throughout even this, she was conscious of his presence; and when, a little while after, she again saw him, he was not walking to and fro before the foot of the bed, but sitting beside her, with one hand laid upon the pillow on which her head was resting, the other supporting his chin.  He was looking steadfastly upon her, with a changed face, an expression of bitter sorrow, compunction, and tenderness.  There was not one trace of sternness; all was softened.  The look was what she fancied he might have turned upon her had she lain there dead, ere yet the love of their early and ill-fated union had grown cold in his heart.  There was something in it which reminded her of days and feelings gone, never to return.  And while she looked in his face with a sweet and mournful fascination, tears unconsciously wet the pillow on which her poor head was resting.  Unable to speak, unable to move, she heard him say—­“It was not your fault, Gertrude—­it was not yours, nor mine.  There is a destiny in these things too strong for us.  Past is past—­what is done, is done forever; and even were it all to do over again, what power have I to mend it?  No, no; how could I contend against the combined power of passions, circumstances, influences—­in a word, of fate?  You have been good and patient, while I—­; but no matter.  Your lot, Gertrude, is a happier one than mine.”

Mrs. Marston heard him and saw him, but she had not the power, nor even the will, herself to speak or move.  He appeared before her passive sense like the phantasm of a dream.  He stood up at the bedside, and looked on her steadfastly, with the same melancholy expression.  For a moment he stooped over her, as if about to kiss her face, but checked himself, stood erect again at the bedside, then suddenly turned; the curtain fell back into its place, and she saw him no more.