his
wizen little face and his nervous, drooping hands. Mrs. Lecount had not
pitied him yet. She began to pity him now. Her point was gained; her
interest in his will was secured; he had put his future life, of his
own accord, under her fostering care--the fire was comfortable; the
circumstances were favorable to the growth of Christian feeling.
"Poor wretch!" said Mrs. Lecount, looking at him with a grave
compassion--"poor wretch!"

The dinner-hour roused him. He was cheerful at dinner; he reverted to
the idea of the cheap little house in France; he smirked and simpered;
and talked French to Mrs. Lecount, while the house-maid and Louisa
waited, turn and turn about, under protest. When dinner was over, he
returned to his comfortable chair before the fire, and Mrs. Lecount
followed him. He resumed the conversation--which meant, in his case,
repeating his questions. But he was not so quick and ready with them as
he had been earlier in the day. They began to flag--they continued, at
longer and longer intervals--they ceased altogether. Toward nine o'clock
he fell asleep again.

It was not a quiet sleep this time. He muttered, and ground his teeth,
and rolled his head from side to side of the chair. Mrs. Lecount
purposely made noise enough to rouse him. He woke, with a vacant eye and
a flushed cheek. He walked about the room restlessly, with a new idea
in his mind--the idea of writing a terrible letter; a letter of eternal
farewell to his wife. How was it to be written? In what language should
he express his feelings? The powers of Shakespeare himself would be
unequal to the emergency! He had been the victim of an outrage entirely
without parallel. A wretch had crept into his bosom! A viper had hidden
herself at his fireside! Where could words be found to brand her with
the infamy she deserved? He stopped, with a suffocating sense in him of
his own impotent rage--he stopped, and shook his fist tremulously in the
empty air.

Mrs. Lecount interfered with an energy and a resolution inspired by
serious alarm. After the heavy strain that had been laid on his weakness
already, such an outbreak of passionate agitation as was now bursting
from him might be the destruction of his rest that night and of his
strength to travel the next day. With infinite difficulty, with endless
promises to return to the subject, and to advise him about it in the
morning, she prevailed on him, at last, to go upstairs and compose
himself for the nig