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“O, where can he be!” Constance ejaculated, rising to her feet, and beginning to pace the room to and fro, pausing every moment to listen to the sound of passing footsteps. Thus she continued for the space of something like half an hour, when she sunk exhausted upon a chair. It was twelve o’clock when he at length came in. As he opened the door, his young wife sprung to his side, exclaiming–

“O, Theodore! Theodore! Why have you staid away so very long?”

As she said this, he staggered against her, almost throwing her over, and then passed on to the parlors without a word in return to her earnest and affectionate greeting.

Poor Constance was stunned for the moment. But she quickly recovered, her woman’s heart nerving itself involuntarily, and followed after her husband. He had thrown himself upon a sofa, and sat, half-reclining, with his head upon his bosom.

“Are you sick, dear Theodore?” his young wife asked, in a tone of deep and earnest affection, laying her hand upon him, and bending down and kissing his forehead.

“Yes, I am sick, Constance,” was the half-stupid reply–

“Come, then, let me assist you up to bed. A good night’s rest will do you good,” she said, gently urging him to rise.

She understood perfectly his condition. She knew that it was intoxication. But while it pained her young heart deeply, it awoke in her bosom no feelings of alarm. She felt convinced that it was the result of accident, and had no expectation of ever again seeing its recurrence. She asked him if he were sick, to spare him the mortification of knowing that she perceived the true nature of his indisposition.

Thus urged, he at once arose, and supported by the weak arm of his young wife, slowly ascended the stairs, and entered his chamber. It was not many minutes before his senses were locked in profound slumber.

Not so, however, Constance. The earnestness with which she had looked for evening to come, that she might again see the face, and hear the voice of her husband, had greatly excited her mind. This excitement was increased by the condition in which he had so unexpectedly returned. The effect was, to keep her awake, in spite of strong efforts to sink away into sleep. Many sad and desponding thoughts forced themselves upon her, as she lay, hour after hour, in a state of half-waking consciousness. It was nearly day-dawn, when, from all this, she found relief in a deep slumber.

The next day was one of heart-aching reflections to Theodore Wilmer. In his eager, but half-insane effort to elevate himself rapidly for the sake of his young wife, he had sunk into actual want, and not only forfeited his own self-respect, but degraded himself, he felt, in the eyes of her whose love was dearer to him than life.

The events of two years must now be passed over, with but a brief notice. There will be enough in the after history of Wilmer and his young wife, to awaken the reader’s keenest sympathies, without unveiling the particular incidents of this period.

Suffice it, then, to say,–that the first night’s experience at the gambling-table was not enough to satisfy Wilmer, that it was neither the right way, nor the most successful way of elevating himself in the world. So anxious did he feel on account of Constance, that be borrowed money of his false friend Arnold, on the evening of the very next day, and after drinking, freely, to nerve himself up, sought again the gambling-table. At ten o’clock, he left, the winner by fifty dollars. He left thus early on account of his wife, who would be, he knew, anxiously looking for his return. This encouraged him to go on, and he did go on. But he could never feel sanguine of success, or be able to still the troubled whispers within, until he had drunken freely. Of course, he was every day more or less under the influence of liquor. For a year, he managed, in this way, to keep up the style of living in which he had commenced, but he could get nothing ahead. None could imagine how this was done, for the young man was exceedingly cautious. He looked to some good turn of fortune by which he should be enabled to abandon for ever a course of life that he hated and despised. No such lucky turn, however, met his anxious expectations. After the first year of this course of life, his health, which had never been very good, began rapidly to fail. His cheeks became hollow, and a racking cough began to show itself. Still he went on keeping late hours, and drinking more and more freely, while his mind was all the time upon the rack. Towards the close of the second year, he was taken down with a severe illness, the result of all this abuse of mind and body. He lingered long upon the brink of the grave; but the little energy which his system retained, rallied at last, and he began slowly to recover. During convalescence, he had full time for reflection. For full two years, he had been almost constantly so much under the influence of brandy, as really to be unable to think rationally upon any subject, and he had, in consequence, pursued a course of life, injurious, both to his own moral and physical health, and to the happiness of her for whom he would, at any moment of that time, have sacrificed everything, even life itself. In rising from that bed of sickness, it was with a solemn vow never again to enter a gaming-house, and never again to touch the bewildering poison that had been the secondary, if not, indeed, the primary cause of two years’ folly–nay, madness.