She asserted passionately that she truly loved me; she implored me to overlook the past, and promised, with solemn appeal to Heaven, that she would renounce the drink from that hour, and give me no more uneasiness. Ay, she promised; a drunkard's promise! Lighter than the lightest gossamer; brittle as the ice of an April morning. I believed her: did she believe herself? I fear not. But the worst was to come, the shadows were deepening, the storm was gathering. A year had passed over our wedded life, when a little girl was given to us. Every cord of my heart that had been untwined or slackened of late wound itself fast round that blessed little one." CHAPTER TWELVE. MR. TANKARDEW'S STORY FINISHED. "All was joy for a time. We called our little one Mary; it was a name I loved. I had not lived as a total abstainer; though, as I told you once, my mother, whom I can only recollect as a widow, had banished all intoxicants from our table. But I was young when she died, and I became, and continued for many years a moderate drinker. But now when our little girl was born, I had swept the house clear of all alcoholic drinks; we hadn't a drop in the place from cellar to attics, so I thought. And my wife agreed with me that our little one should never know the taste of the strong drink. We had not many friends, for I was shy and reserved still, and my home was my world and society; at least I wished it to be so. Sometimes I thought my wife strangely excited, it looked very like the old misery, but she solemnly declared that she never tasted anything intoxicating. I hoped she spoke the truth, even against the evidence of my senses. After a while she persuaded me that I wanted change, that I was rusting out in my loneliness. She would have me accept an invitation to a friend's house now and then: it would do me good. _She_ was happy in her home, she said, only she should be happier still if she could see me gaining spirits by occasional intercourse with like-minded friends. Not that she wished me to leave her; it was for my own good she said it, and she should be delighting in the thoughts of the good it would do me, and should find abundance to cheer her in my absence, in the care of our darling child. She said all this so openly, so artlessly, that I believed her. I thought she might be right; so I went now and then from home for a few days, and, by degrees, more and more frequently. And my wife encouraged it. She said it did me so much good, and the benefit I reaped in improved health, spirits, and intelligence quite reconciled her to the separation. We went on so till our Mary was five years old; I could not say that my wife was ever manifestly intemperate, but painful suspicions hung like a black cloud over me. At last one summer's day, one miserable day: I can never forget it: I set out to pay a week's visit to a friend, who lived some ten miles distant from my home. I drove myself in a light, open