I made no attempt to rouse my wife, not because I feared I should not succeed, but because I had no desire to restore her to consciousness and to hold converse with her. I needed time to review more calmly the position in which I was placed and to decide upon my course of action in the future. Meanwhile I applied myself to an examination of the bedroom. One of Barbara's trunks was unlocked; the lid was down, but a litter of feminine apparel on the floor denoted that it had been hurriedly opened and the articles of clothing as hurriedly snatched from the top, with no intention, as Barbara had indicated, of putting her things in order, but rather of getting quickly at something which lay beneath. Had I the right to search this trunk? was the question I mentally put to myself. I did not, however, stop to discuss it. Right or wrong, I raised the lid, and taking out the garments which first met my eyes I found beneath them damning proofs of Barbara's degradation. Five bottles of brandy were brought to light--the one she had emptied made the sixth. She had provided herself liberally, sufficient for six days at the rate she had commenced. My first impulse was to throw them out of the window, but I checked myself in time. The noise of the broken glass would have brought the manager and his staff buzzing about me. What should I do with the cursed things? Leave them in her trunk? No; it would be inviting a series of disgraceful exhibitions such as that which lay within my view. From me she would receive no assistance to reach a lower depth than that into which she had fallen. I could at least make it difficult for her to obtain her next supply of liquor without my knowledge, so I carried the bottles to the outer room, and secreted them in one of my own trunks, determining to get rid of them by some means in the course of the next few hours. Then I huddled Barbara's clothes into her trunk, and closed the lid. Without casting another glance at my wife, who was now beginning to breathe more heavily, I returned to the sitting-room, and sinking into a chair, burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Thus did I pass my bridal night. CHAPTER VI. At seven in the morning I heard my wife shifting restlessly and moaning in her bedroom. I had not had a moment's sleep during the night. My eyes closed occasionally from weariness, but sleep did not come to me; nor did I woo it, for I felt the necessity of keeping awake, lest Barbara should create a disturbance. Her condition was a new and bitter experience to me, and I did not know what form it might take. In whatever form it presented itself I must be prepared to cope with it; and it behoved me, therefore, to keep on the watch.