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“O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow, To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam, Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night, Thou makest the heaven thou hopest indeed thy home.” |
CHAPTER XXXIV.
“SAD CASE OF MANIA A POTU.”
“Watchman McDonough reports that late last night, he picked up, on the sidewalk, the insensible body of Maurice Carlyle, who showed some signs of returning animation after 458 his removal to Station House No. ——. A physician was called in, and every effort made to save the unfortunate victim of intemperance; but medical skill was inadequate to arrest the work of many years of excess, and before daylight the wretched man expired in dreadful convulsions. Coroner Boutwell held an inquest on the body, and the verdict rendered was ‘Death from mania a potu.’ Mr. Carlyle was well known in this city, where for many years he was an ornament to society, and a general favorite in the fashionable and mercantile circle in which he moved. Of numbers who were once the recipients of his bounty and hospitality, none offered succor in the hour of adversity, and among all his former friends none were found to cheer or pity in the last ordeal to which flesh is subjected. The melancholy fate of Maurice Carlyle furnishes another illustration of the mournful truth that the wages of intemperance are destitution and desertion.”
Such was the startling announcement, which, under the head of “Police Report,” Dr. Grey read and re-read in a prominent New York paper that had accidentally remained for some days unopened on his desk, and was dated nearly a month previous. Locking the door of his office, he sat down to collect his bewildered thoughts, and to quiet the tumult in his throbbing heart.
During the two years that had drearily worn away since his last interview with Mrs. Carlyle, he had sternly forbidden his mind to dwell on its brief dream of happiness, and by a life of unusually active benevolence endeavored to forget the one episode which alone had power to disquiet and sadden him.
He had philosophically schooled himself to the calm, unmurmuring acceptance of his lonely destiny, and looked forward to a life solitary yet not unhappy, although uncheered by the love and companionship which every man indulges the instinctive hope will sooner or later crown his existence.
Now heart and conscience, so long at deadly feud, suddenly signalled a truce, clasped hands, embraced cordially. How radiant the world looked,—with what wondrous glory the 459 future had in the twinkling of an eye robed itself. The woman he had loved was stainless and free, and how could she long resist the pleadings of his famished heart?