and austere.  The revolution in his deportment and appearance was almost incredible.  His wife was recklessly imprudent, and launched into the wildest excesses which society sanctioned.  When he endeavored to restrain her, she rebelled, and, without his knowledge, carried on a flirtation with one whom she had known previous to her marriage.  I believe she was innocent in her folly, and merely thoughtlessly fed her vanity with the adulation excited by her beauty.  Poor child! she might have learned discretion, but, unfortunately, Mrs. Chilton had always detested her, and now, watching her movements, she discovered Creola’s clandestine meetings with the gentleman whom her husband had forbidden her to recognize as an acquaintance.  Instead of exerting herself to rectify the difficulties in her brother’s home, she apparently exulted in the possession of facts which allowed her to taunt him with his wife’s imprudence and indifference.  He denied the truth of her assertions; she dared him to watch her conduct, and obtained a note which enabled him to return home one day at an unusually early hour and meet the man he had denounced in his own parlor.  Guy ordered him out of the house, and, without addressing his wife, rode back to see his patients; but that night he learned from her that before he ever met her an engagement existed between herself and the man he so detested.  He was poor, and her mother had persuaded her to marry Guy for his fortune.  She seemed to grow frantic, cursed the hour of her marriage, professed sincere attachment to the other, and, I firmly believe, became insane from that moment.  Then and there they parted.  Creola returned to her mother, but died suddenly a few weeks after leaving her husband.  They had been married but a year.  I have always thought her mind diseased, and it was rumored that her mother died insane.  Doubtless Guy’s terrible rage drove her to desperation; though he certainly had cause to upbraid.  I have often feared that he would meet the object of his hatred, and once, and only once afterward, that man came to the city.  Why, I never knew; but my husband told me that he saw him at a concert here some years ago.  Poor Guy! how he suffered; yet how silently he bore it; how completely he sheathed his heart of fire in icy vestments.  He never alluded to the affair in the remotest manner; never saw her after that night.  He was sitting in our library, waiting to see my husband, when he happened to open the letter announcing her death.  I was the only person present, and noticed that a change passed over his countenance; I spoke to him, but he did not reply; I touched him, but he took no notice whatever, and sat for at least an hour without moving a muscle or uttering a word.  Finally George came and spoke to him appealingly.  He looked up and smiled.  Oh, what a smile!  May I never see such another; it will haunt me while I live!  Without a word he folded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and left us.  Soon