illusions. To-day he stood with his hand just ready to seize the object
of his wishes, to-morrow a shadow mocked him. At last, in an evil hour,
he bowed down his manhood prostrate even to the dust in woman worship,
and took to himself a bride, rich in golden, attractions, but poorer as
a woman than ever the beggar at her father's gate. What a thorn in his
side she proved! A thorn ever sharp and ever piercing. The closer he
attempted to draw her to his bosom, the deeper went the points into his
own, until, in the anguish of his soul, again and again he flung her
passionately from him.

Five years of such a life! Oh, what is there of earthly good to
compensate therefor? But in this last desperate throw did the worldling
gain the wealth, station, and honour he coveted? He had wedded the only
child of a man whose treasure might be counted by hundreds of thousands;
but, in doing so, he had failed to secure the father's approval or
confidence. The stern old man regarded him as a mercenary interloper,
and ever treated him as such. For five years, therefore, he fretted and
chafed in the narrow prison whose gilded bars his own hands had forged.
How often, during that time, had his heart wandered back to the dear old
home, and the beloved ones with whom he had passed his early years!
And, ah! how many, many times came between him and the almost hated
countenance of his wife the gentle, the loving face of that one to whom
he had been false! How often her soft blue eyes rested on his own How
often he started and looked up suddenly, as if her sweet voice came
floating on the air!

And so the years moved on, the chain galling more deeply, and a bitter
sense of humiliation as well as bondage robbing him of all pleasure in
his life.

Thus it is with him when, after ten years, we find him waiting, in the
chamber of death, for the stroke that is to break the fetters that so
long have bound him. It has fallen. He is free again. In dying, the
sufferer made no sign. Suddenly she plunged into the dark profound, so
impenetrable to mortal eyes, and as the turbid waves closed, sighing
over her, he who had called her wife turned from the couch on which her
frail body remained, with an inward "Thank God! I am a man again!"

One more bitter dreg yet remained for his cup. Not a week had gone by
ere the father of his dead wife spoke to him these cutting words:--

"You were nothing to me while my daughter lived--you are less than
nothing to me