Slowly, more like a moving automaton than a living creature, did Mrs. Howland arise from her place, and follow her husband up to their chamber.  There, without uttering a word, she partially disrobed herself, and getting into bed, buried her tearful face in a pillow.  Mr. Howland was soon by her side.  Both lay without moving for nearly half an hour, and then the heavy respiration of the husband told that he was asleep.  The moment this was apparent, Mrs. Howland, who had lain as still as if locked in deep slumber, crept softly from the bed, and then, with a quick, eager motion, commenced putting on a wrapper.  This done, she drew a pair of slippers on her feet, glided noiselessly from the room, and hurried down to the street door, which she softly opened.

The mother had hoped to find her erring son still there.  But, as she looked anxiously forth into the darkness, no human form was perceived.

“Andrew!” she called, in a low voice, as she stepped from the door, and threw her eyes up and down the street:  “Andrew!”

But all was silent.  Descending to the pavement, she passed along a few yards to the steps of the next house, a faint hope in her mind that Andrew might have seated himself there in his disappointment and fallen asleep.  But this hope was not realized.  Then she passed on to the next house, and the next, with the same purpose and the same result.  She was near the corner of the street, when the sound of a closing door fell upon her ear, and the thought that the wind might have shut her own door upon her, filled her with sudden alarm.  Running back, she found that what she had feared was too true.  She was alone in the street, half-dressed and with her head uncovered, and the door, which closed with a dead-latch, shut against her.

To ring the bell was Mrs. Howland’s first impulse.  But no one answered to the summons.  Every ear was sealed in slumber, and, even were that not the case, no one would come down, unless her husband should awaken, and discover that she was not by his side.  Again and again she pulled the bell.  But eagerly though she listened, with her ear to the door, not the slightest movement was heard within.

While the mother shrunk close to the door in a listening attitude, the sound of a slow, heavy step was heard approaching along the street.  Soon the form of a man came in view, and in a little while he was in front of Mrs. Howland, where he paused, and after standing and looking at her for a few moments, said,

“What’s the matter here?”

Mrs. Howland trembled so, that she could make no answer.

The man put his hand on the iron railing, and lifted one foot upon the stone steps leading to the door of the house, saying as he did so,

“Do you live here?”

“Yes!” was replied in a low, frightened voice.

Mrs. Howland now looking at the man more closely, perceived, by his dress, that he was one of the night policemen, and her heart took instant courage.