scover the name of the vessel in which her
husband had embarked. On arriving in the New World, she was
therefore uncertain whether he had preceded her in a steamer, or was
still lingering on the way.

The friends to whom Agnes brought letters received her with great
kindness, and gave her all the advice and assistance needed under
the circumstances. But two weeks went by without a word of
intelligence on the one subject that absorbed all her thoughts.
Sadly was her health beginning to suffer. Sunken eyes and pale
cheeks attested the weight of suffering that was on her.

One day it was announced that a Liverpool packet had arrived with
the ship fever on board, and that several of the passengers had been
removed to the hospital.

A thrill of fear went through the heart of the anxious wife. It was
soon ascertained that Marvel had been a passenger on board of this
vessel; but, from some cause, nothing in regard to him beyond this
fact could she learn. Against all persuasion, she started for the
hospital, her heart oppressed with a fearful presentiment that he
was either dead or struggling in the grasp of a fatal malady. On
making inquiry at the hospital, she was told the one she sought was
not there, and she was about returning to the city, when the truth
reached her ears.

"Is he very ill?" she asked, struggling to compose herself.

"Yes, he is extremely ill," was the reply. "And it might not be well
for you, under the circumstances, to see him at present."

"Not well for his wife to see him?" returned Agnes. Tears sprung to
her eyes at the thought of not being permitted to come near in his
extremity. "Do not say that. Oh, take me to him! I will save his
life."

"You must be very calm," said the nurse; for it was with her she was
talking. "The least excitement may be fatal."

"Oh, I will be calm and prudent." Yet, even while she spoke, her
frame quivered with excitement.

But she controlled herself when the moment of meeting came, and,
though her unexpected appearance produced a shock, it was salutary
rather than injurious.

"My dear, dear Agnes!" said Edward Marvel, a month from this time,
as they sat alone in the chamber of a pleasant house in New York, "I
owe you my life. But for your prompt resolution to follow me across
the sea, I would, in all probability, now be sleeping the sleep of
death. Oh, what would I not suffer for your sake!"

As Marvel uttered the last sentence, a troubled expression flitted