"Cora, love, wife, where are you?"
She could bear no more. The overtasked heart gave way.
When, the next instant, the eager bridegroom pushed aside the satin portieres and entered the apartment, with a flood of light from the room in front, he found his bride had thrown herself down on the Persian rug before the sofa in the wildest anguish and despair and in a paroxysm of passionate sobs and tears.
What a sight to meet a newly-made, adoring husband's eyes on his marriage evening and on the eve of the day of his highest triumph, in love as in ambition!
For one petrified moment he gazed on her, too much amazed to utter a word.
Then suddenly he stooped, raised her as lightly as if she had been a baby, and laid her on the sofa.
"Cora—love—wife! Oh! what is this?" he cried, bending over her.
She did not answer; she could not, for choking sobs and drowning tears.
He knelt beside her, and took her hand, and bent his face to hers, and murmured:
"Oh, my love! my wife! what troubles you?"