"'Sarah,' he at last said, in a voice of affection, coming to her side.
"'What do you want?' she replied, still without looking up.
"'Look up at me, Sarah,' he said, in a voice that slightly trembled.
"Instantly her work dropped from her hands, and she lifted her eyes to the face of her husband, and murmured in a low, sad tone,
"'What is it you wish, Joseph?'
"'You look very pale, and very sorrowful, Sarah,' her husband said, with increasing tenderness of tone and manner.
"It had been so very long since he had spoken to her kindly, or since he had appeared to take any interest in her, that the first tenderly uttered word melted down her heart, and she burst into tears, and leaning her head against him, sobbed long and passionately.
"With many a kind word, and many a solemn promise of reformation did the husband soothe the stricken heart of his wife, into which a new hope was infused.
"'I will be a changed man, after this, Sarah,' he said— 'And then it must go well with us. It seems as if I had been, for the last year, the victim of insanity. I cannot realize how it is possible for any one to abandon himself as I have done; to the neglect of all the most sacred ties and duties that can appertain to us. How deeply—O, how deeply you must have suffered!'
"'Deeply, indeed, dear husband!—More than tongue can utter,' the young wife replied, in a solemn tone. 'It has seemed, sometimes, as if I must die. Day after day, week after week, and month after month, to see you coming in and going out, as you have done, for ever intoxicated. To have no kind word or look. No rational intercourse with one to whom I had yielded up my heart so confidingly. O, my husband! you know not how sad a trial you have imposed upon your wife!'