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.
"James! James!" she said, in a voice of assumed calmness—laying her hand upon him and endeavouring to arouse him to consciousness. But it was a long time before she could get him so fully awake as to make him understand that it was necessary for him to go up stairs and retire to bed. At length she succeeded in getting him into his chamber before the servants had come down; and then into bed. Once there, he fell off again into a profound sleep.
"Is pa sick?" asked little Emma, coming into her mother's chamber, about an hour after, and seeing her father in bed.
"Yes, dear, your father is quite unwell!" Mrs. Martin said, in a calm voice.
"What ails him, ma?" pursued the child.
"He is not very well, dear; but will be better soon," the mother said, evasively.
The little girl looked into her mother's face for a few moments unsatisfied with the answer, and unwilling to ask another question. She felt that something was wrong, more than the simple illness of her father.