“DEAR CLARA—­For you are still dear to me, although you have robbed me of happiness for ever, and crushed your own hopes with mine.  For years before I came to this place, I had been a slave to intoxication—­a slave held in a fearful bondage.  At last, I resolved to break loose from my thraldom.  One vigorous effort, and I was free.  There yet remained to me a small remnant of a wrecked fortune.  With this I abandoned my early home, and fixed my residence here, determined once more to be a man.  Temptations beset me on every hand; but while I touched not, tasted not, handled not, I knew that I was safe.  But alas for the hour when you became my tempter!  O, that the remembrance of it could be blotted from my memory for ever!  When, for your sake, I raised that fatal glass to my lips, and the single drop of wine that touched them thrilled wildly through every nerve, I felt that I was lost.  Horrible were my sensations, but your tempting voice lured me to sip the scarcely tasted poison; I did so, and my resolution was gone!  All that occurred after that is only dimly written on my memory.  But I was a madman.  That I can realize.  When drunk, I have always acted the madman.  And now we part for ever!  I am a proud man, and cannot remain in the scene of my disgrace.  My property I leave for you, and go I know not, and care not, whither—­perhaps to die, unlamented, and unknown, and sink into a drunkard’s grave.  Farewell!”

This letter bore neither name nor date.  But they were not needed.

Five years from that sorrowful morning Clara sat by a window in her father’s house, near the close of day, looking dreamily up into the serene and cloudless sky.  Her face was pale, and had a look of hopeless suffering.  Five years!—­It seemed as if twenty must have passed over her head, each burdening her with a heavy weight of affliction.  O, what a wreck did she present!  Five years of such a life!  Who can tell their history?  She was alone; and sat with her head upon her hand, and her eyes fixed, as if upon some object.  But, evidently, no image touched the nerve of vision.  Presently her lips moved, and a few mournful words were uttered aloud, almost involuntarily.

“O, that I knew where he was!  O, that I could but find him, if alive!”

A slight noise startled her, and she turned quickly.  Was it a vision?  Or did her long-lost husband stand before her, the shadow of what he had been?

“Clara!  Dear Clara!”

In a moment she was clinging to him with a trembling, eager, convulsive grasp.  Tenderly did he fold her in his arms, and press his lips to hers fervently.

“Clara!  Dear Clara!”

“My own dear husband!” was all she could utter, as she sank like a helpless child on his bosom.