d into such a match. Wealth
was the general solution--but this I knew to be no solution at all;
for Wyatt had told me that she neither brought him a dollar nor had any
expectations from any source whatever. "He had married," he said, "for
love, and for love only; and his bride was far more than worthy of his
love." When I thought of these expressions, on the part of my friend, I
confess that I felt indescribably puzzled. Could it be possible that he
was taking leave of his senses? What else could I think? He, so refined,
so intellectual, so fastidious, with so exquisite a perception of the
faulty, and so keen an appreciation of the beautiful! To be sure, the
lady seemed especially fond of him--particularly so in his absence--when
she made herself ridiculous by frequent quotations of what had been
said by her "beloved husband, Mr. Wyatt." The word "husband" seemed
forever--to use one of her own delicate expressions--forever "on the tip
of her tongue." In the meantime, it was observed by all on board, that
he avoided her in the most pointed manner, and, for the most part, shut
himself up alone in his state-room, where, in fact, he might have been
said to live altogether, leaving his wife at full liberty to amuse
herself as she thought best, in the public society of the main cabin.

My conclusion, from what I saw and heard, was, that, the artist, by some
unaccountable freak of fate, or perhaps in some fit of enthusiastic
and fanciful passion, had been induced to unite himself with a person
altogether beneath him, and that the natural result, entire and speedy
disgust, had ensued. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart--but
could not, for that reason, quite forgive his incommunicativeness in the
matter of the "Last Supper." For this I resolved to have my revenge.

One day he came upon deck, and, taking his arm as had been my wont, I
sauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom, however (which
I considered quite natural under the circumstances), seemed entirely
unabated. He said little, and that moodily, and with evident effort. I
ventured a jest or two, and he made a sickening attempt at a smile. Poor
fellow!--as I thought of his wife, I wondered that he could have heart
to put on even the semblance of mirth. I determined to commence a series
of covert insinuations, or innuendoes, about the oblong box--just to let
him perceive, gradually, that I was not altogether the butt, or victim,
of his little bit of pleasant m