Mr. Read's disease assumed a chronic type. Some days well enough to transact business in person,--then relapsing, in consequence of trifling exposure or change of weather, his existence was a series of anxieties and sufferings. Ida did not know how she became his nurse; Josephine would not endure his petulance, and her retorts exasperated him; and his wife was too deep in the vortex of fashionable life to waste many minutes upon him; it was unjust and unfeeling to abandon him to the care of menials; and as with her reading, what was a favor, voluntarily offered, came to be regarded as a duty, expected and unrequited. The Danas objected to this thankless sacrifice; but she persisted. It was during one of his worst spells, that an incident occurred, which she did not heed at the time, but when recalled by subsequent events, was fraught with meaning. It was in the evening; and she was on her way to the dining-room, to order a cup of tea for the invalid, when the light streaming through a crack in the parlor-door suggested the probability that the servant she was in quest of, was lighting the lamps in there. She pushed the door open. Mrs. Read was in the middle of the room, her face averted, and her arm extended in repulsion or denial, towards a tall, dark man, who was speaking in a low, excited tone. "'Forget!' I do not forget that circumstances are not what they were then!" was all that Ida heard, as she retired hastily and unseen. As she passed through the entry, she caught a noise, like the rustle of drapery, but supposed it to be the waving of her dress in the wind. Mr. Read was in agony; and Ida sent to request Dr. Ballard's immediate presence. The messenger's steps were not cold upon the stairs, when the sick man tormented himself with impatience for the physician's arrival. "If the servant had a pass, it was not signed--if it was signed, he had lost it--if he had lost it, Ballard would wait to eat his supper, before he came. I wish he had this shooting fire through his limbs! It would put some speed into his lazy body! Ah! there he is!" It was Mrs. Read, who meeting the servant with the tea, and hearing of her husband's state, had taken it from him. Ida, preoccupied as she was, noticed that she was pale and agitated. Her voice too, was tremulous, and had a cadence that might have been mistaken for tenderness. "I grieve to see you so much worse. Drink this, it may relieve you," she said, slipping her hand under his pillow to raise his head. Ida sprang forward to arrest the movement. He was suffering excruciating pain in his neck; and frantic at its augmentation by this change of position, he dashed the cup to the floor, with a shocking oath. "You want to kill me! I've seen that for a long time; and then you can flaunt to your heart's content. You can marry whom you please, and make him rich with my money, like the shameless wretch you are!" he yelled, distractedly.