“Yes. No--no; I'll do without it. It's passing off. Wait here for a moment; I 'll be back presently.” He arose as he spoke, and moved slowly away. Entering the house, he ascended the stairs and made for his wife's room. As he reached the door, he stopped to listen. There was not a sound to be heard. He turned the handle gently, and looked in. One shutter was partly open, and a gleam of the breaking daylight crossed the floor and fell upon the bed on which she lay, dressed, and fast asleep,--so soundly, indeed, that though the door creaked loudly as he pushed it wider, she never heard the noise. She had evidently been sitting up with a sick man, and was now overcome by fatigue. His intention had been to consult with her,--at least to ask her to assist him with whatever money she had by her,--and he had entered thus stealthily not to startle her; for somehow, in the revulsion of his mind from the late scene of outrage and insult, a sense of respect, if not of regard, moved him towards her, who, in his cruelest moments, had never ceased to have a certain influence over him. He looked at her as she slept; her fine features, at rest, were still beautiful, though deep traces of sorrow were seen in the darkened orbits and the lines about that mouth, while three or four glistening white hairs showed themselves in the brown braid over her temple. Sewell sat down beside the bed, and, as he looked at her, a whole life passed in review before him, from the first hour he met her to that sad moment of the present. How badly they had played their game! how recklessly misused every opportunity that might have secured their fortune! What had _he_ made of all his shrewdness and ready wit? And what had _she_ done with all her beauty, and a fascination as great as even her beauty? It was an evil day that had brought them together. Each, alone, without the other, might have achieved any success. There had been no trust, no accord between them. They wanted the same things, it is true, but they never agreed upon the road that led to them. As to principles, she had no more of them than he had; but she had scruples--scruples of delicacy, scruples of womanhood--which often thwarted and worried him, and ended by making them enemies; and here was now the end of it! _Her_ beauty was wasted, and _his_ luck played out, and only ruin before them. And yet it calmed him to sit there; her softly drawn breathing soothed his ruffled spirit. He felt it as the fevered man feels the ice-cold water on his brow,--a transient sense of what it would be to be well again. Is there that in the contemplation of sleep--image as it is of the great sleep of all--that subdues all rancor of heart,--all that spirit of conflict and jar by which men make their lives a very hell of undying hates, undying regrets?