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“My dear madam, what has happened?” said she, as she took her hand.

Mrs. Marion was too much overcome by emotion to be able to speak for some moments. Acquiring self-possession at length, she said, in a low, sad voice–

“My heart is almost broken, Mrs. Darlington. I feel crushed to the very ground. How shall I speak of what I am suffering?”

Her voice quivered and failed. But in a few moments she recovered herself again, and said, more calmly–

“I need not tell you that my husband has been absent for a week; he went away in a moment of anger, vowing that he would never return. Hourly have I waited since, in the hope that he would come back; but, alas! I have thus far received from him neither word nor sign.”

Mrs. Marion here gave way to her feelings, and wept bitterly.

“Did he ever leave you before?” asked Mrs. Darlington, as soon as she had grown calm.

“Once.”

“How long did he remain away?”

“More than a year.”

“Have you friends?”

“I have no relative but an aunt, who is very poor.”

Mrs. Darlington sighed involuntarily. On that very day she had been seriously examining into her affairs, and the result was a conviction that, under her present range of expenses, she must go behind-hand with great rapidity. Mr. and Mrs. Marion were to pay fourteen dollars a weeks Thus far, nothing had been received from them; and now the husband had gone off and left his family on her hands. She could not turn them off, yet how could she bear up under this additional burden!

All this passed through her mind in a moment, and produced the sigh which distracted her bosom.

“Do you not know where he has gone?” she asked, seeking to throw as much sympathy and interest in her voice as possible, and thus to conceal the pressure upon her own feelings which the intelligence had occasioned.

Mrs. Marion shook her head. She knew that, in the effort to speak, her voice would fail her.

For nearly the space of a minute there was silence. This was broken, at length, by Mrs. Marion, who again wept violently. As soon as the passionate burst of feeling was over, Mrs. Darlington said to her in a kind and sympathizing voice–

“Do not grieve so deeply. You are not friendless altogether. Though you have been with us only a short time, we feel an interest in you, and will not”–

The sentence remained unfinished. There was an impulse in Mrs. Darlington’s mind to proffer the unhappy woman a home for herself and children; but a sudden recollection of the embarrassing nature of her own circumstances checked the words on her tongue.

“I cannot remain a burden upon you,” quickly answered Mrs. Marion. “But where can I go? What shall I do?”

The last few words were spoken half to herself, in a low tone of distressing despondency.

“For the present,” said Mrs. Darlington, anxious to mitigate, even in a small degree, the anguish of the unhappy woman’s mind, “let this give you no trouble. Doubtless the way will open before you. After the darkest hour the morning breaks.”

Yet, even while Mrs. Darlington sought thus to give comfort, her own heart felt the weight upon it growing heavier. Scarcely able to stand up in her difficulties alone, here was a new burden laid upon her.

None could have sympathized more deeply with the afflicted mother and deserted wife than did Mrs. Darlington and her family; and none could have extended more willingly a helping hand in time of need. But, in sustaining the burden of her support, they felt that the additional weight was bearing them under.

CHAPTER VI.

THREE months more elapsed. Mrs. Marion was still an inmate of the family. Up to this time, not a word had come from her husband, and she had not been able to pay Mrs. Darlington a single dollar.

Painfully did she feel her dependent situation, although she was treated with the utmost delicacy and consideration. But all the widow’s means were now exhausted in the payment of the second quarter’s rent, and she found her weekly income reduced to thirty-five dollars, scarcely sufficient to meet the weekly expense for supplying the table, paying the servants, etc., leaving nothing for future rent bills, the cost of clothing, and education for the younger children. With all this, Mrs. Darlington’s duties had been growing daily more and more severe. Nothing could be trusted to servants that was not, in some way, defectively done, causing repeated complaints from the boarders. What proved most annoying was the bad cooking, to remedy which Mrs. Darlington strove in vain. One day the coffee was not fit to drink, and on the next day the steak would be burnt or broiled as dry as a chip, or the sirloin roasted until every particle of juice had evaporated. If hot cakes were ordered for breakfast, ten chances to one that they were not sour; or, if rolls were baked, they would, most likely, be as heavy as lead.