“ ‘Do you know, George, that, during all the evening I have been tortured with a foreboding that our happiness is destined, like yonder shooting-star, to last only for a while, and then pass away forever? It may be that this is our last evening. I cannot tell in what shape the impending evil will come,’ she said, ‘but this I know, that be it what it may, we shall always love each other, shall we not, George?’
“ ‘Yes, dearest!’ I replied, kissing her, ‘but dismiss these gloomy thoughts; they arise only from your ill-health. Believe me, we shall continue for long, long years to enjoy our present felicity.’ Ah! me, little did my own feelings coincide with what I said. ‘Cheer up, dearest, I shall return in a fortnight or so, and by that time shall be able to assure you that I shall leave you no more.’
“With words like these I attempted to remove the forebodings of Isabel, but though she smiled faintly in return, I found that I could not wholly dispel the melancholy of her thoughts. I dreaded the parting on the morrow, and accordingly, having deceived her as to the hour of my setting forth, I rose at day-break, kissed her as she lay calmly sleeping, and, tearing myself from her, entered the mail-stage, and before the hour when we usually arose, was miles away from our habitation.
“I reached the city, and found my fortune, indeed, trembling on the verge of ruin. For some days its preservation engaged every faculty of my mind, and I found time for nothing else, unless it was to read and answer the letters I daily received from my sweet wife. The times were critical. Stocks of every kind—and nearly my whole fortune was vested in them—were undergoing a fearful depreciation; and one or two heavy loans which had been made out of my estate, and which completed the balance of my wealth, were in a most precarious situation. I soon found it would not only be impossible to settle my affairs so as to rejoin Isabel at the end of the fortnight, but that I must undertake a journey, personally, to a southern city, which would delay me at least a month more; and, accordingly, I penned a hasty note to her on the eve of my setting out, bidding her look forward, at the expiration of this new term, to a happy meeting, and informing her at what post-towns I should look for letters from her.
“I set forth on the ensuing day, but, though I enquired at the various post-offices along my route, where I expected letters, yet I did not receive a line from Isabel; and the first epistle which I obtained was a letter which I found lying for me, on my arrival at the port of my destination. It had come from P——, and was written prior to Isabel’s knowledge of my second journey. I have it still by me; every line of it is graven on my heart; my only prayer is that it may be buried with me, for alas!—it is the last letter I ever received from Isabel.
“As day after day rolled by without receiving any intelligence from her, I grew more and more uneasy, until, as the term of my absence drew toward a close, my sensations approached to agony. A few disappointments I had borne with fortitude, if not with calmness, for I knew that the mail was not always regular; but when days grew into weeks, and weeks had almost grown into months, without the arrival of a single line from Isabel, either directly from our residence, or indirectly by the way of P——, nay fears grew insupportable. I was like Prometheus chained to a rock, and subject to a torture from which there was no escape. At length I could endure it no longer, but hastily bringing my business to a close, even at a considerable sacrifice, I set out by rapid journeys toward my home, without even passing by P——, such was my eagerness to know what could have been the cause of Isabel’s silence.
“It was on an evening in the latter part of the month of March, when my jaded horses drew up before the gate of my dwelling. Hastily alighting, I entered the little lawn, and was soon at my long-sought-for threshold. But I started back at the sight that met my eyes. The windows were dark and cheerless; the grass was covered with leaves and broken twigs; the knobs upon the door were soiled for want of burnishing; and everything around wore that appearance of loneliness and desolation which marks an uninhabited house. With a fainting heart I lifted the knocker. The sounds echoed with hollow distinctness through the house; but no one replied to the summons. Again and again I repeated it; and again and again I was unsuccessful. With a heart wild with the most terrible fears I passed to the back part of the house; but there, too, I found the same silence and desolation. It was like the house of the dead. Unable longer to contain myself I rushed back to my carriage, and with an air that made the coachman believe me insane, ordered him to drive to a neighboring farm-house.
“ ‘Who’s there?’ asked a female voice from inside of the cottage, in answer to my impetuous knock.
“ ‘I, madam, do you not know me? But where, in heaven’s name, is Isabel? where is my wife?’ I exclaimed, seeing by the astonished looks of the woman, that she, too, believed me out of my senses, ‘what is the matter at my house, that I find it closed?’
“ ‘Oh! la,’ answered the woman, curtseying as she held the candle to my face, ‘you are the gentleman that lived at the big house nigh to the stage-road, across the creek. Gracious me! how wild you look. But, sit down, sir; we ain’t very nice just now, for baby’s sick, and we can’t afford help—’