THEODORE."
The note dropped from her hand, and she sank into a chair, overcome with a feeling of strong disappointment. To wait until eight or nine o'clock in the evening, before she should see him, when the morning had appeared lengthened to a day! O, it seemed as if she could not endure the wearisome interval!
As for Wilmer, the truth was, he found himself so much under the influence of the liberal quantity of brandy which he had taken, that he dared not go home to Constance. He would not have appeared before her as he was, for the world. It was under the consciousness of his condition, that he wrote the billet, which his young wife had received. After doing so, he went to bed at a public house, and slept until towards evening. When he awoke, Arnold was sitting in the chamber. Some feelings of bitter regret for the pains which his absence must have caused his young wife, passed through his mind, as he aroused himself. These were soon drowned by a few glasses of wine, which his friend had already ordered to be sent up. That friend, let it here be remarked, was not a professed gambler—nor had he any sinister designs in urging on Wilmer as he was doing. But he was a man of loose morals, and, therefore, really believed that he was doing him a service in urging him to make an effort to get upon his feet by means of the gambling-table. Knowing the young man's high-toned feelings—and how utterly he must, from his character, condemn anything like play, he had purposely sought to obscure his perceptions by inducing him to drink freely. In this, he had succeeded.
As soon as night had thrown her dark shadows over the city, the two young men took their steps towards one of those haunts, known, too appropriately, by the name of "hells." At eight o'clock, Theodore went in, with two hundred dollars in his pocket—all the money he possessed;—and at ten o'clock, came out penniless.
Lonely and long was the afternoon to the young bride, giving opportunity to many thoughts of a sober, and even saddening nature. Evening came at last, and then night with its deeper gloom. Eight o'clock arrived, and nine, but her husband did not return. And then the minutes slowly passed, until the clock struck ten.
"O, where can he be!" Constance ejaculated, rising to her feet, and beginning to pace the room to and fro, pausing every moment to listen to the sound of passing footsteps. Thus she continued for the space of something like half an hour, when she sunk exhausted upon a chair. It was twelve o'clock when he at length came in. As he opened the door, his young wife sprung to his side, exclaiming—
"O, Theodore! Theodore! Why have you staid away so very long?"
As she said this, he staggered against her, almost throwing her over, and then passed on to the parlors without a word in return to her earnest and affectionate greeting.
Poor Constance was stunned for the moment. But she quickly recovered, her woman's heart nerving itself involuntarily, and followed after her husband. He had thrown himself upon a sofa, and sat, half-reclining, with his head upon his bosom.
"Are you sick, dear Theodore?" his young wife asked, in a tone of deep and earnest affection, laying her hand upon him, and bending down and kissing his forehead.