The failure of her husband to return at the dinner hour, filled her with trembling anxiety.  Not once during two years had he been absent from home without her being perfectly aware of the cause.  Its occurrence just at this crisis was a confirmation of her vague fears, and made her sick at heart.  Slowly did the afternoon pass away, and at last the hour came for his return in the evening.  But though she looked for his approaching form, and listened for the well-known sound of his footsteps, he did not come.

Anxiety and trembling uncertainty now gave way to an overwhelming alarm.  Hurriedly were her children put to bed, and then she went out to seek for him, she knew not whither.  To the store in which he had become a partner, she first turned her steps.  It was closed as she had feared.  Pausing for a few moments to determine where next to proceed, she concluded to go to the house of his partner, and learn from him if he had been to the store that day, and at what time.  On her way to his dwelling, she passed down a small street, in which were several drinking-houses, hid away there to catch the many who are not willing to be seen entering a tavern.

In approaching one of these, loud voices within, and the sound of a scuffle, alarmed her.  She was about springing forward to run, when the door was suddenly thrown open, and a man dashed out, who fell with a violent concussion upon the pavement, close by her feet.  Something about his appearance, dark as it was, attracted her eye.  She stooped down, and laid her hand upon him.  It was her husband!

A wild scream, that rung upon the air,—­a scream which the poor heart-stricken creature could not have controlled if her life had been the forfeit—­brought instant assistance.  Marshall was taken into a neighbouring house, and a physician called, who, on making an examination, said that a serious injury might, or might not have taken place—­he could not tell.  One thing, however, was certain, the man was beastly drunk.

O, with what a chill did that last sentence fall upon the ear of his wife!  It was the death-knell to all the fond hopes she had cherished for two peaceful years.  For a moment she leaned her head against the wall near which she was standing, and wished that she could die.  But thoughts of her children, and thoughts of duty roused her.

A carnage was procured and her husband conveyed home, and then, after he had been laid upon a bed, she was left alone with him, and her own sad reflections.  It was, to her, a sleepless night—­but full of waking dreams, whose images of fear made her heart tremble and shrink, and long for the morning.