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Morning at last came. How eagerly did the poor wife bend over the still unconscious form of her husband, reading each line of his features, as the pale light that came in at the windows gave distinctness to every object! He still breathed heavily, and there was an expression of pain on his countenance. A double cause for anxiety and alarm, pressed upon the heart of Mrs. Marshall. She knew not how serious an injury his fall might have occasioned,–nor how utter might be his abandonment of himself, now that he had broken his solemn pledge. As she bent over him in doubt, pain, and anxiety, he suddenly awoke, and, without moving, looked her for a moment steadily in the face, with a glance of earnest inquiry. Then came a distinct recollection of his violated pledge; but all after that was only dimly seen, or involved in wild confusion. His bodily sensations told him but too plainly how deep had been his fall: and the intolerable desire, that seemed as if it were consuming his very vitals, was to him a sad evidence that he had fallen, never, he feared, to rise again. All this passed through his mind in a moment, and he closed his eyes, and turned his face away from the earnest, and now tearful gaze of his wife.

“How do you feel, Jonas?” Mrs. Marshall inquired, tenderly, modifying her tones, so as not to permit them to convey to his ear the exquisite pain that she felt. But he made no reply.

“Say, dear, how do you feel?” she urged, laying her hand upon him, and pausing for an answer.

“As if I were in hell!” he shouted, springing suddenly from the bed, and beginning to dress himself, hurriedly.

“O, husband, do not speak so!” Mrs. Marshall said, in a soothing tone. “All may be well again. One sin need not bring utter condemnation. Let this be the last, as it has been the first, violation of your pledge. Let this warn you against the removal of that salutary restraint, which has been as a wall of fire around you for years.”

“Jane!” responded the irritated man, pausing, and looking at his wife, fixedly, while there sat upon his face an expression of terrible despair; “that pledge can never be renewed! It would be like binding a giant with a spider’s web. I am lost! lost! lost! The eager, inexpressible desire that now burns within me, cannot be controlled. The effort to do so would drive me mad. I must drink, or die. And you, my poor wife!–and you, my children! what will become of you? Who will give you sufficient strength to bear your dreadful lot?”

As he said this, his voice fell to a low and mournful, despairing expression–and he sunk into a chair, covering his face with his hands.

“Dear husband!” urged his wife, coming to his side, and drawing her arm around his neck, “do not thus give way! Let the love I have ever borne you, and which is stronger and more tender at this moment than it has ever been–let the love you feel for your dear little ones, give you strength to conquer. Be a man! Nerve yourself, and look upwards for strength, and you must conquer.”

“No–no–no–Jane!” the poor wretch murmured, shaking his head, mournfully. “Do not deceive your heart by false hopes, for they will all be in vain. I cannot look up. The heavens have become as brass to me. I have forfeited all claim to success from above. As I lifted the fatal glass to my lips, I heard a voice, whose tones were as distinct as yours–‘Let us go hence!’ and from that moment, I have been weak and unsustained in the hands of my enemies. I am a doomed man!”

As he said this, a shrinking shudder passed through his frame, and he groaned aloud. The silence that then reigned through the chamber was as appalling as the silence of death to the heart of Mrs. Marshall. It was broken at length by her husband, who looked up with an expression of tenderness in her face, as she still stood with her hand upon him, and said–