fearful lot. She saw before her
the blight of her own affections, the ruin of her helpless children, the
disgrace and misery of her husband. She looked around her in helpless
despair, for she well knew the power of the vice whose deadly seal was
set upon her husband. As one who is struggling and sinking in the waters
casts a last dizzy glance at the green sunny banks and distant trees
which seem sliding from his view, so did all the scenes of her happy
days pass in a moment before her, and she groaned aloud in bitterness of
spirit. "Great God! help me, help me," she prayed. "Save him--O, save my
husband."

Augusta was a woman of no common energy of spirit, and when the first
wild burst of anguish was over, she resolved not to be wanting to her
husband and children in a crisis so dreadful.

"When he awakes," she mentally exclaimed, "I will warn and implore; I
will pour out my whole soul to save him. My poor husband, you have been
misled--betrayed. But you are too good, too generous, too noble to be
sacrificed without a struggle."

It was late the next morning before the stupor in which Edward was
plunged began to pass off. He slowly opened his eyes, started up wildly,
gazed hurriedly around the room, till his eye met the fixed and
sorrowful gaze of his wife. The past instantly flashed upon him, and a
deep flush passed over his countenance. There was a dead, a solemn
silence, until Augusta, yielding to her agony, threw herself into his
arms, and wept.

"Then you do not hate me, Augusta?" said he, sorrowfully.

"Hate you--never! But, O Edward, Edward, what has beguiled you?"

"My wife--you once promised to be my guardian in virtue--such you are,
and will be. O Augusta! you have looked on what you shall never see
again--never--never--so help me God!" said he, looking up with solemn
earnestness.

And Augusta, as she gazed on the noble face, the ardent expression of
sincerity and remorse, could not doubt that her husband was saved. But
Edward's plan of reformation had one grand defect. It was merely
modification and retrenchment, and not _entire abandonment_. He could
not feel it necessary to cut himself off entirely from the scenes and
associations where temptation had met him. He considered not that, when
the temperate flow of the blood and the even balance of the nerves have
once been destroyed, there is, ever after, a double and fourfold
liability, which often makes a man the sport of the first untoward
chance.