may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not,
Hearts can thus be torn away.
Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat,
And the undying thought which paineth,
Is, that we no more may meet."

Sudden death had entered the home of Louise Edson and made her a widow.
Her husband died of cholera, in a distant city, whence he had gone for
the purchase of goods, and was brought home a corpse. Louise reeled to
earth beneath the sudden and unexpected blow. Her soul was lacerated by
constant memory of the wrong she had done him, and it seemed to her
aroused and trembling conscience that avenging Heaven had taken to
itself the man she had so deeply injured, and left her to grope darkly
on in her own wickedness and sin. True she had been cruelly disappointed,
and through long years compelled to struggle on in all the bitter
loneliness of feelings unreplied to, bound by indissoluble chains to one
who had no tastes or sympathies in common with her. Death had freed her
now, but, ah! too late. The taint of sin was on her soul. She had forgot
her vows at the altar, debased herself and wronged her husband by
listening to words of passion from another. O, far less bitter would
have been her grief, as she stood weeping over his lifeless form, could
she have laid her hand on the cold, damp brow and said, "I have loved
thee ever, and through life's cares and perplexities stood closely at
thy side to cheer and smooth thy pathway." But this she could not say.
She only felt that the soul had gone to God, to learn her falsity and
sin, and looked from the skies upon her with grief and avenging anger.
Bitterly she thought of the man who had led her from the path of
rectitude, and resolved to see him no more. As a self-inflicted penance,
she immured herself within the walls of her own mansion, and determined
to pass the remainder of her life in solitude. Many of her numerous
friends sought admittance to express sympathy and condolence in her
affliction, but she refused to see them and resisted all their
overtures. Only one person gained entrance to her seclusion. That was
Mrs. Stanhope, whose kind heart was deeply pained by the apparently
incurable sorrow that had settled on the mind of her young friend, and
strove, by every effort in her power, to lighten her woes and lead her
to more hopeful views of the future