The news of other heavy failures of houses indebted to him, brought his affairs to a crisis, and all his troubles seemed piled mountain high upon him at once. Poor Edda would have gone instantly to her husband when she heard of his trouble—for she had immediately repented of her hasty step—but she did not dare; she remembered his sternness, and dreaded a repulse which she felt she deserved. Then a new cause of anxiety displayed itself, her boy sickened, and, after a few hours’ illness, he died in her arms. Her husband was sent for, but he did not notice her; he stood beside the coffin of his child, pale, tearless, and with a countenance as unchanging as a statue of marble; he never looked at his sobbing wife, who, softened by her grief, would have willingly thrown herself into his arms, and asked pardon for the past, and forbearance for the future; but he coldly turned from her after the funeral, without speaking a word. Two months passed by, and still Ralph Murray treated his wife with the same silent indifference. He never sought an interview nor an explanation; it seemed as if the death of their child, instead of softening him, had, to his mind, broken off all connection between them. Edda grieved incessantly, until at last her health became seriously affected. When the traveling season came, the physicians who had been called in to heal the poor breaking heart, recommended an instant departure for the sea-side. Fine apartments were procured, every elegance, every luxury surrounded her; but she looked more wretched, more unhappy every day. She knew that their beautiful house belonged to another—every thing had been sold; that she no longer had a home with her husband; and the consciousness that she was a childless, lonely wife, became daily more insupportable. Poor girl! life seemed very dark and hopeless to her. Her trouble had lifted her spirit on almost a life time; all the childish, capricious waywardness of girlhood had disappeared; sorrow had done the work of years; and she was now a woman—but a suffering, loving woman, ready to make any sacrifice, perform any duty, to atone for the past. Her uncle and aunt caressed her, and sympathized with her, while they incessantly spoke of her husband with words of reproach and blame; and when she would check them, saying the greater part of the blame rested on herself, they would think her still more lovely and amiable, and lift their hands in surprise. How reproaching to her conscience was their sympathy! and she grew more and more despairing and hopeless.