"I don't believe, aunt, that there is the slightest danger in the world of Edward Lee. He become a drunkard! How can you dream of such a thing, aunt?"
"I have seen much more of the world than you have, Alice. And I have seen too many as high-minded and as excellent in character as Edward Lee, who have fallen. And I have seen the bright promise of too many girls utterly extinguished, not to tremble for you. I tell you, Alice, that of all the causes of misery that exist in the married life, intemperance is the most fruitful. It involves not only external privations, toil, and disgrace, but that unutterable hopelessness which we feel when looking upon the moral debasement of one we have respected, esteemed, and loved."
"I am sure, aunt, that I will not attempt to gainsay all that. If there is any condition in life that seems to me most deplorable and heart-breaking, it is the condition of a drunkard's wife. But, so far as Edward Lee is concerned, I am sure there does not exist the remotest danger."
"There is always danger where there is indulgence. The man who will drink one glass a day now, will be very apt to drink two glasses in a twelvemonth; and so go on increasing, until his power over himself is gone. Many, very many, do not become drunkards until they are old men; but, sooner or later, in nine cases out of ten, a man who allows himself to drink habitually, I care not how moderately at first, will lose his self-control."
"Still, aunt, I cannot for a moment bring myself to apprehend danger in the case of Edward."
"So have hundreds said before you. So did I once say, Alice. But years of heart-aching misery told how sadly I was mistaken!"
The feelings of Alice were touched by this allusion. She had never before dreamed that her uncle, who died while she was but a little girl, had been a drunkard. Still, nothing that her aunt said caused her to entertain even a momentary doubt of Edward Lee. She felt that he had too much of the power of principle in his character ever to be carried away by the vice of intemperance.
Edward Lee had offered himself in marriage to Alice Liston, and it was on the occasion of her mentioning this to her aunt that the conversation just riven occurred. It had, however, no effect upon the mind of Alice. She loved Edward Lee tenderly, end, therefore, had every confidence in him. They were, consequently, married, and commenced life with prospects bright and flattering. But Edward continued to use intoxicating drinks in moderate quantities every day. And, while the taste for it was forming, he was wholly unconscious of danger. He would as readily have believed himself in danger of murdering his wife, as in danger of becoming a drunkard. He was a young merchant in a good business when married, and able to put his young wife in possession of a beautifully furnished house and all required domestic attendance, so as to leave her but a very small portion of care.
Like the passage of a delightful dream were the first five years of her wedded life. No one was ever happier than she in her married lot, or more unconscious of coming evil. She loved her husband tenderly and deeply, and he was all to her that she could desire. One sweet child blessed their union. At the end of the period named, like the sudden bursting of a fearful tempest from a summer sky, came the illness and death of her aunt, who had been a mother to her from childhood.
Scarcely had her heart begun to recover from this shock, when it was startled by another and more terrible affliction. All at once it became apparent that her husband was losing his self-control. And the conversation that she had held with her aunt about him, years before, came up fresh in her memory, like the echo of a warning voice, now heard, alas! too late. She noticed, with alarm, that he drank largely of brandy at dinner, and was much stupified when he would rise from the table—always retiring and sleeping for an hour before going back to his business. Strange, it seemed to her, that she had never remarked this before. Now, if she had desired it, she could not close her eyes to the terrible truth.