cked up, on the
sidewalk, the insensible body of Maurice Carlyle, who showed some
signs of returning animation after his removal to Station House
No. ----. A physician was called in, and every effort made to save the
unfortunate victim of intemperance; but medical skill was inadequate
to arrest the work of many years of excess, and before daylight the
wretched man expired in dreadful convulsions. Coroner Boutwell held an
inquest on the body, and the verdict rendered was 'Death from _mania a
potu_.' Mr. Carlyle was well known in this city, where for many years
he was an ornament to society, and a general favorite in the
fashionable and mercantile circle in which he moved. Of numbers who
were once the recipients of his bounty and hospitality, none offered
succor in the hour of adversity, and among all his former friends none
were found to cheer or pity in the last ordeal to which flesh is
subjected. The melancholy fate of Maurice Carlyle furnishes another
illustration of the mournful truth that the wages of intemperance are
destitution and desertion."

Such was the startling announcement, which, under the head of "Police
Report," Dr. Grey read and re-read in a prominent New York paper that
had accidentally remained for some days unopened on his desk, and was
dated nearly a month previous. Locking the door of his office, he sat
down to collect his bewildered thoughts, and to quiet the tumult in
his throbbing heart.

During the two years that had drearily worn away since his last
interview with Mrs. Carlyle, he had sternly forbidden his mind to
dwell on its brief dream of happiness, and by a life of unusually
active benevolence endeavored to forget the one episode which alone
had power to disquiet and sadden him.

He had philosophically schooled himself to the calm, unmurmuring
acceptance of his lonely destiny, and looked forward to a life
solitary yet not unhappy, although uncheered by the love and
companionship which every man indulges the instinctive hope will
sooner or later crown his existence.

Now heart and conscience, so long at deadly feud, suddenly signalled a
truce, clasped hands, embraced cordially. How radiant the world
looked,--with what wondrous glory the future had in the twinkling of
an eye robed itself. The woman he had loved was stainless and free,
and how could she long resist the pleadings of his famished heart?

He would win her from cynicism and isolation, would melt her frozen
nature in the ge