For a
time he kept his situation to himself, and went about with a
haggard countenance, and a breaking heart. His life was but a
protracted agony; and what rendered it more insupportable was the
necessity of keeping up a smile in the presence of his wife; for
he could not bring himself to overwhelm her with the news. She
saw, however, with the quick eyes of affection, that all was not
well with him. She marked his altered looks and stifled sighs,
and was not to be deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at
cheerfulness. She tasked all her sprightly powers and tender
blandishments to win him back to happiness; but she only drove
the arrow deeper into his soul. The more he saw cause to love
her, the more torturing was the thought that he was soon to make
her wretched. A little while, thought he, and the smile will
vanish from that cheek--the song will die away from those
lips--the lustre of those eyes will be quenched with sorrow and
the happy heart which now beats lightly in that bosom, will be
weighed down, like mine, by the cares and miseries of the world.
At length he came to me one day, and related his whole situation
in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had heard him through, I
inquired: "Does your wife know all this?"--At the question he
burst into an agony of tears.
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