e of peace, had never contradicted her first idea that age and long
illness had affected Mrs. Scatchard's mind. He even allowed his wife to
upbraid him for not having confessed this to her at the time of their
marriage engagement, rather than risk anything by hinting at the truth.
The sacrifice of his integrity before his one all-mastering delusion
seemed but a small thing, and cost his conscience but little after the
sacrifices he had already made.

The time of waking from this delusion--the cruel and the rueful
time--was not far off. After some quiet months of married life, as the
summer was ending, and the year was getting on toward the month of his
birthday, Isaac found his wife altering toward him. She grew sullen and
contemptuous; she formed acquaintances of the most dangerous kind in
defiance of his objections, his entreaties, and his commands; and, worst
of all, she learned, ere long, after every fresh difference with her
husband, to seek the deadly self-oblivion of drink. Little by little,
after the first miserable discovery that his wife was keeping company
with drunkards, the shocking certainty forced itself on Isaac that she
had grown to be a drunkard herself.

He had been in a sadly desponding state for some time before the
occurrence of these domestic calamities. His mother's health, as he
could but too plainly discern every time he went to see her at the
cottage, was failing fast, and he upbraided himself in secret as the
cause of the bodily and mental suffering she endured. When to his
remorse on his mother's account was added the shame and misery
occasioned by the discovery of his wife's degradation, he sank under the
double trial--his face began to alter fast, and he looked what he was, a
spirit-broken man.

His mother, still struggling bravely against the illness that was
hurrying her to the grave, was the first to notice the sad alteration in
him, and the first to hear of his last worst trouble with his wife.
She could only weep bitterly on the day when he made his humiliating
confession, but on the next occasion when he went to see her she had
taken a resolution in reference to his domestic afflictions which
astonished and even alarmed him. He found her dressed to go out, and on
asking the reason received this answer:

"I am not long for this world, Isaac," she said, "and I shall not feel
easy on my death-bed unless I have done my best to the last to make my
son happy. I mean to put my own fears