“His health has not been good for some time,” was the young man’s reply. “He has tied himself down in his studio too long, and worked with too intent a purpose, until he has wasted his body as you see. A few days ago, nature sank exhausted under burdens too heavy for her to bear. But your presence and your care will restore him.” And Liston was right in his prediction. Ellison soon after sank away into a deep slumber, which lasted for hours. When he awoke, though weak almost as an infant, he was in his right mind. CHAPTER X. A week subsequent to Clara’s arrival in Venice, whither she had come after a month’s search in Paris, Naples, Florence and Rome, for her husband, she sat by the bed-side of Alfred, now rapidly recovering, while Ella, their beautiful child, over a year old, was sleeping in her arms. “I know it would have been better, Clara, far better,” said the invalid, replying to a remark which his wife had made. “But the disasters of that western business put me half beside myself. Ah me! how much happier we would have been if your fortune had been like my own—nothing.” A cloud flitted over the brow of Clara as he made this last remark. She sighed faintly, and was silent. “I am weak and foolish on this subject,” said he, after a few moments. “But you understand why it is so. The weight of a feather will hurt an inflamed wound.” Clara looked at her husband half reproachfully, and then changed the subject. A year longer Ellison remained in Italy, devoting his time to study and practice in the higher schools of art, and then turned his face homeward, taking with him about twenty pictures, half of which were his own compositions, and all of a high order of merit. There is now, in the city of New York, an artist whose pictures are scarcely dry from the easel ere they meet with purchasers at a liberal price. His portraits are among the finest that are produced, and he is, consequently, never without a sitter. Money flows in to him by thousands, and from the proceeds of his own work, he has surrounded himself with all the elegances of life that a man of taste could desire. That artist is Ellison. Fifteen years have elapsed since the painful events we have described transpired. But success has not entirely obliterated the marks they left behind. To let his mind go back and linger thoughtfully on the past, is but to throw a shadow over his spirit. Often, as he looks into the face of his wife, comes upon him the remembrance that he sought her, at first, less for herself than for the external advantages she would bring him, and that she knows of the mercenary feelings which drew him to her side. [Illustration]