“Oh! if Edward should never return!” Esther said, clasping her hands together.  She had scarcely heard the last sentence of her aunt.

“You need not fear on that account, my child,” replied Mrs. Carlisle, in a voice meant to inspire confidence.  “Edward will no doubt return.  Few men act so rashly as to separate themselves at the first misunderstanding, although, too often, the first quarrel is but the prelude to others of a more violent kind, that end in severing the most sacred of all bonds, or rendering the life that might have been one of the purest felicity, an existence of misery.  When Edward comes home to-night, forget every thing but your own error, and freely confess that.  Then, all will be sunshine in a moment, although the light will fall and sparkle upon dewy tear-drops.”

“I was mad to treat him so!” was Esther’s response to this, as she paced the floor, with uneasy step.  “Oh! if he should never return.”

Once possessed with the idea that he would not return, the poor wife was in an agony of fear.  No suggestion made by her aunt in the least relieved her mind.  One thought—­one fear—­absorbed every thing else.  Thus passed the evening, until ten o’clock came.  From that time Esther began to listen anxiously for her husband’s return, but hour after hour went by, and she was still a tearful watcher.

“I shall go mad if I sit here any longer!” murmured Huntley to himself, as the music came rushing upon his agitated soul, in a wild tempest, toward the middle of the opera, and, rising abruptly, he retired from the theatre.  How still appeared the half deserted streets!  Coldly the night air fell upon him, but the fever in his veins was unabated.  He walked first up one street and then down another, with rapid steps, and this was continued for hours.  Then the thought of going home crossed his mind.  But he set his teeth firmly, and murmured audibly,

“Oh! to be defied, and charged with being a tyrant?  And has it come to this so soon?”

The more Huntley brooded, in this unhappy mood, over his wife’s words and conduct, the denser and more widely refracting became the medium through which he saw.  His pride continually excited his mind, and threw a thick veil over all the gentler emotions of his heart.  He was beside himself.

At one o’clock he found himself standing in front of the United States Hotel, his mind made up to desert the affectionate young creature, who, in a moment of thoughtlessness, had set her will in opposition to his,—­to leave the city, under an assumed name, by the earliest lines, and go, he knew not nor cared not where.  Blind passion was his prompter and guide.  In this feverish state he entered the hotel and called for a bed.

Eleven, twelve, one o’clock came, and found Mrs. Huntley in a state of wild agitation.  Edward had not yet returned.  The silence and evident distress of Mrs. Carlisle struck down the heart of Esther, almost as much as her own fears.  The too vivid recollection of one terrible event in her own life completely unbalanced the aunt’s mind, and took away all power to sustain her niece.