ectly. He might be living, or he might be dead. There came no
word of him, or from him. I was fond enough of her to be satisfied with
this--he never disturbed us.

IV.

THE year passed--and the end came. Not the end as you may have
anticipated it, or as I might have foreboded it.

You remember the time when your letters from home informed you of the
fatal termination of our mother's illness? It is the time of which I am
now speaking. A few hours only before she breathed her last, she called
me to her bedside, and desired that we might be left together alone.
Reminding me that her death was near, she spoke of my prospects in life;
she noticed my want of interest in the studies which were then
supposed to be engaging my attention, and she ended by entreating me to
reconsider my refusal to enter the Church.

"Your father's heart is set upon it," she said. "Do what I ask of you,
my dear, and you will help to comfort him when I am gone."

Her strength failed her: she could say no more. Could I refuse the last
request she would ever make to me? I knelt at the bedside, and took her
wasted hand in mine, and solemnly promised her the respect which a son
owes to his mother's last wishes.

Having bound myself by this sacred engagement, I had no choice but to
accept the sacrifice which it imperatively exacted from me. The time
had come when I must tear myself free from all unworthy associations.
No matter what the effort cost me, I must separate myself at once and
forever from the unhappy woman who was not, who never could be, my wife.

At the close of a dull foggy day I set forth with a heavy heart to say
the words which were to part us forever.

Her lodging was not far from the banks of the Thames. As I drew near the
place the darkness was gathering, and the broad surface of the river was
hidden from me in a chill white mist. I stood for a while, with my eyes
fixed on the vaporous shroud that brooded over the flowing water--I
stood and asked myself in despair the one dreary question: "What am I to
say to her?"

The mist chilled me to the bones. I turned from the river-bank, and made
my way to her lodgings hard by. "It must be done!" I said to myself, as
I took out my key and opened the house door.

She was not at her work, as usual, when I entered her little
sitting-room. She was standing by the fire, with her head down and with
an open letter in her hand.

The instant she turned to meet me, I saw in her face that so