“‘Why can’t I—­’

“She paused—­her eyes fell to the floor, and the colour deepened on her cheeks.

“‘What, dear?’

“‘Go with you?’

“It was in New York that the family of Eaverson resided.

“‘Not now,’ he quickly answered.  ’I am compelled to go in too much hurry; but the next time business takes me there you shall accompany me.’

“Nothing could be more unsatisfactory than this.  Was she not to be introduced to his family, as his wife, formally?  Was she only to go to the city of their residence at some future time, when business called her husband there?  The thought caused a chill to pass through her frame.  She made no reply.  But the paleness that overspread her face, and the sadness that fell upon her countenance, revealed to her husband, too plainly, her state of mind.  He said nothing, however, to dispel the gloom she felt.  Words, he no doubt felt, would be fruitless.

“The young wife parted with her husband it tears, and then retired to her chamber, where she gave way to a paroxysm of grief, that had its origin more in the accompanying mystery than in the fact of her husband’s absence.  I say mystery, for she did not fully credit the reason he had given for his hurried visit to New York, and felt that there was a mystery connected with it, that, somehow or other, deeply affected her happiness.

“After the mind of Harriet had grown calmer, she commenced restoring to order the few articles in her chamber that had been disarranged in the hurried preparation made by her husband for his departure.  As she was about placing the coat he had worn in the morning, and which he had changed for another on going away, in the wardrobe, her hand pressed against a letter in one of the pockets, which a sudden curiosity tempted her to read.  The direction was in a small, delicate hand, and the post-mark New York.  Hurriedly opening it, when she saw this, she read its brief contents, which were as follow: 

“DEAR HENRY—­I heard, indirectly, within the last hour, that you were married.  I cannot believe it, yet the thought has maddened me!  If you do not come to me by to-morrow night, I will go to you on the following day—­for the truth or falsity of what I have heard must be verified to me at once.  If it be true—­God help the innocent heart you have betrayed, and most cruelly wronged.  It can only break!

“ADELAIDE.”

“The trembling hands of the horror-stricken wife could hold the fatal epistle no longer than to permit her eyes to rest upon the signature.  It then fell rustling to the floor, and she sat pale, quivering in every nerve, and unconscious of any thing but a wild whirling of all her senses.