s feelings would become more callous, his heart more flinty
and impervious to her persuasive arguments--but God knew best. Meantime,
however, I could not but be anxious for the result of His decrees;
knowing, as I did, that (leaving myself entirely out of the question),
however Helen might feel interested in her husband's welfare, however she
might deplore his fate, still while he lived she must be miserable.

A fortnight passed away, and my inquiries were always answered in the
negative. At length a welcome 'yes' drew from me the second question.
Lawrence divined my anxious thoughts, and appreciated my reserve. I
feared, at first, he was going to torture me by unsatisfactory replies,
and either leave me quite in the dark concerning what I wanted to know,
or force me to drag the information out of him, morsel by morsel, by
direct inquiries. 'And serve you right,' you will say; but he was more
merciful; and in a little while he put his sister's letter into my hand.
I silently read it, and restored it to him without comment or remark.
This mode of procedure suited him so well, that thereafter he always
pursued the plan of showing me her letters at once, when 'inquired' after
her, if there were any to show--it was so much less trouble than to tell
me their contents; and I received such confidences so quietly and
discreetly that he was never induced to discontinue them.

But I devoured those precious letters with my eyes, and never let them go
till their contents were stamped upon my mind; and when I got home, the
most important passages were entered in my diary among the remarkable
events of the day.

The first of these communications brought intelligence of a serious
relapse in Mr. Huntingdon's illness, entirely the result of his own
infatuation in persisting in the indulgence of his appetite for
stimulating drink. In vain had she remonstrated, in vain she had mingled
his wine with water: her arguments and entreaties were a nuisance, her
interference was an insult so intolerable that, at length, on finding she
had covertly diluted the pale port that was brought him, he threw the
bottle out of the window, swearing he would not be cheated like a baby,
ordered the butler, on pain of instant dismissal, to bring a bottle of
the strongest wine in the cellar, and affirming that he should have been
well long ago if he had been let to have his own way, but she wanted to
keep him weak in order that she might have him under he