“Why does he stay so late?” she said, rising and pacing the room backwards and forwards.  This she continued to do, pausing every now and then to listen, for nearly an hour.  Then she went to the door and looked long and anxiously in the direction from which she expected her husband to come.  But his well-known form met not her eager eyes, that peered so intently into the darkness and gloom of the night.  With another long-drawn sigh, she closed the door, and re-entered the silent and lonely room.  That silence was broken by the loud and clear ringing of the clock.  The hour was one!  Mrs. Martin’s feelings now became too much excited for her to control them.  She sank into a chair, and wept in silent anguish of spirit.  For nearly a quarter of an hour her tears continued to flow, and then a deep calm succeeded—­a kind of mental stupor, that remained until she was startled again into distinct consciousness by the sound of the clock striking two.

All hope now faded from her bosom.  Up to this time she had entertained a feeble expectation that her husband might be kept away from some other cause than the one she so dreaded; but now that prop became only as a broken reed, to pierce her with a keener anguish.

“It is all over!” she murmured bitterly, as she again arose, and commenced, walking to and fro with slow and measured steps.

It was fully three o’clock before that lonely, and almost heart-broken wife and mother retired to her chamber.  How cruelly had the hope which had grown bright and buoyant in the last few months, gaining more strength and confidence every day, been again crushed to the earth!

For an hour longer did Mrs. Martin sit, listening in her chamber, everything around her so hushed into oppressive silence, that the troubled beating of her own heart, was distinctly audible.  But she waited and listened in vain.  The sound of passing footsteps that now came only at long, very long intervals, served but to arouse a momentary gleam in her mind, to fade away again, and leave it in deeper darkness.

Without disrobing, she now laid herself down, still listening, with an anxiety that grew more and more intense every moment.  At last, over-wearied nature could bear up no longer, and she sunk into a troubled sleep.  When she awoke from this, it was daylight.  Oh, how weary and worn and wretched she felt!  The consciousness of why she thus lay, with her clothes unremoved, the sad remembrance of her hours of waiting and watching through nearly the whole night, all came up before her with painful distinctness.  Who but she who has suffered, can imagine her feelings at that bitter moment?

On descending to the parlour, she found her husband lying in a half-stupid condition on the sofa, the close air of the room impregnated with his breath—­the sickening, disgusting breath of a drunken man!  Bruised, crushed, paralyzed affection had now to lift itself up—­the wife just ready to sink to the earth, powerless, under the weight of an overburdening affliction, had now to nerve herself under the impulse of duty.