In confirmation of this, letters giving the minutest particulars were shown, thus corroborating the worst, and extinguishing the feeblest rays of hope. All was too true. The brilliant bubble had indeed burst, and not the shadow of a substance remained. When satisfied of this beyond all doubt, Markland, on whose mind suffering had produced a temporary stupor, sought his room at the hotel, and remained there for several days, so hopeless, weak, and undecided, that he seemed almost on the verge of mental imbecility. How could he return home and communicate the dreadful intelligence to his family? How could he say to them, that, for his transgressions, they must go forth from their beautiful Eden? "No--no!" he exclaimed, wringing his hands in anguish. "I can never tell them this! I can never look into their faces! Never! never!" The moment had come, and the tempter was at his ear. There was, first, the remote suggestion of self-banishment in some distant land, where the rebuking presence of his injured family could never haunt him. But he felt that a life in this world, apart from them, would be worse than death. "I am mocked! I am cursed!" he exclaimed, bitterly. The tempter was stealthily doing his work. "Oh! what a vain struggle is this life! What a fitful fever! Would that it were over, and I at rest!" The tempter was leading his thoughts at will. "How can I meet my wronged family? How can I look my friends in the face? I shall be to the world only a thing of pity or reproach. Can I bear this? No--no--I cannot--I cannot!" Magnified by the tempter, the consequence looked appalling. He felt that he had not strength to meet it--that all of manhood would be crushed out of him. "What then?" He spoke the words almost aloud, and held his breath, as if for answer. "A moment, and all will be over!" It was the voice of the tempter. Markland buried his face in his hands, and sat for a long time as motionless as if sleep had obscured his senses; and all that time a fearful debate was going on in his mind. At last he rose up, changed in feeling as well as in aspect. His resolution was taken, and a deep, almost leaden, calmness pervaded his spirit. He had resolved on self-destruction! With a strange coolness, the self-doomed man now proceeded to select the agent of death. He procured a work on poisons, and studied the effects of different substances, choosing, finally, that which did the fatal work most quickly and with the slightest pain. This substance was then procured. But he could not turn forever from those nearest and dearest, without a parting word. The day had run almost to a close in these fearful struggles and fatal preparations; and the twilight was falling, when, exhausted and in tears, the wretched man folded, with trembling hands, a letter he had penned to his wife. This done, he threw himself, weak as a child, upon the bed, and, ere conscious that sleep was stealing upon him, fell off into slumber.