“How long have I been here?”

She told him the number of days, and he immediately asked,

“Have I been in any danger?”

“Yes; very great danger; out that has all passed now, and if you will only be composed and careful you will soon be strong again.”

“I heard my father talking to you.  Who else is here?”

He looked at her with eager interest.

“No one else, except our kind matron.  Mr. Graham came as soon as the letter reached him, and has not left the house since.”

A look of indescribable sorrow and shame swept over his countenance as he continued bitterly: 

“And did Antoinette know all at once?  Stop, Beulah; tell me the miserable truth.  Did she know all and still remain away?”

“She knew all that had been communicated to Mr. Graham when he came; and he has written to her every day.  He is now writing to inform her that you are better.”

She shrank from giving the pain she was conscious her words inflicted.

“I deserve it all!  Yes, ingratitude, indifference, and desertion!  If I had died she would have heard it unmoved.  Oh, Cornelia, Cornelia, it is a fearful retribution; more bitter than death!” Averting his face, his whole frame trembled with ill-concealed emotion.

“Eugene, you must compose yourself.  Remember you jeopardize your life by this sort of excitement.”

“Why didn’t you let me die?  What have I to live for?  A name disgraced and a wife unloving and heartless!  What has the future but wretchedness and shame?”

“Not unless you will it so.  You should want to live to retrieve your character, to take an honorable position, which, hitherto, you have recklessly forfeited; to make the world respect you, your wife revere you, and your child feel that she may be proud of her father!  Ah, Eugene, all this the future calls you to do.”

He looked up at her as she stood beside him, pale, thin, and weary, and his feeble voice faltered, as he asked: 

“Beulah, my best friend, my sister, do you quite despise me?”

She laid her hands softly on his, and, stooping down, pressed her lips to his forehead.

“Eugene, once I feared that you had fallen even below my pity; but now I believe you will redeem yourself.  I hope that, thoroughly reformed, you will command the respect of all who know you and realize the proud aspirations I once indulged for you.  That you can do this I feel assured; that you will, I do most sincerely trust.  I have not yet lost faith in you, Eugene.  I hope still.”

She left him to ponder in solitude the humiliating result of his course of dissipation.

CHAPTER XXXIV.