It was about the time of the conversation that we have recorded above, that Henry Dawson one day returned home rather earlier than was his habit. Maria was in the drawing-room when he entered. She noted that his brow was clouded, but this had been the case for several days; and when, on a former occasion, she had spoken to him of it, he had put her off with what she felt was but a pretext, and she determined to abstain from questioning until he was ready to give her his confidence. It had however worried her. Between them, since their marriage, confidence had been entire. They had no secrets from each other, and hence she argued this could not concern Henry alone or he would have communicated with her; the affairs of some friend which he was not at liberty to disclose even to her must be preying upon him, and she would wait until the cloud had been removed, or he was ready of his own accord to disclose it to her. He had been standing by a table with his back turned to her for a few minutes, engaged apparently in an attentive examination of something on it, when he turned suddenly to her-- “Maria,” and his voice was wanting in all the softness with which he usually addressed her, and was pitched in the key-note of one who has some desperate communication to make--“Maria, you must nerve yourself for ill news. I am a ruined man,” he rather jerked out than said, and as he spoke the strong man sank into a chair by his side. Not one word did she speak. She sat for a moment as one stunned by a sudden blow; then rising she passed softly to his side, and resting one hand on his shoulder, with the other she drew gently from his face the hands in which he strove to hide it, then stooping down pressed her lips upon his forehead. “Cheer up, dear husband,” was her first words. “Poor though we may be in earth’s substances, yet in one thing are we still rich--our mutual love. Think not, dearest Henry, that for myself I care for all the glittering baubles around me, so that I still retain your love.” And again were those soft lips pressed upon his forehead, and a flood of tears relieved the anguish of his mind. Think him not unmanly because he thus wept. This proud man who thus gave way, was in all probability one who on the field of strife could with curling lip, and flashing eye, and with sword or bat waving wildly o’er his head, have led a band of the most reckless and daring who ever trod a battle-field “to do or die;” could have again, as he had done that morning, met his fellow men with cheek unblanched and eye unwandering, and with a ready smile upon his lip, whilst the vulture was gnawing at his heart. But this conduct of his wife, so pure, so heavenly, so devoted--it was too much for his manhood--it touched the inmost chords of deepest sensibility within him, and the strong man wept.