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caress or love-word. The proud, defiant, agonized woman the weak, loving girl - each by turn held sway. And still treading his own mad downward way, looking with cold scorn or with intervals of fitful tenderness on this poor suffering woman whose only weakness lay in loving too strongly an unworthy object, went Augustus Revere.

It was a May night, cold for the season; heavy clouds brooding in the sky, completely shut out the stars; and as Julie Revere sat in the midnight silence, she heard the patter of raindrops on the leaves of the vine at her window. Throwing up the sash, she leaned out to cool her heated throbbing head. Long ago every footfall had died out from the streets; and if the slightest noise broke the silence the quick tread of some belated traveller hastening homeward, or the watchman on his rounds she leaned eagerly forward, listened anxiously till the echoes died in the distance, then with weariness and disappointment, sank back.

At last a hurried step came on the pavement, ascended the flight of marble steps, the click of a night-key was heard in the lock, and Mr. Revere entered the hall and went up to his wife's chamber. The watcher gave a long drawn sigh of relief, withdrew her white jewelled hands from their nervous clasp, and leaned slightly forward in an expectant attitude- a rich bloom breaking over her cheek.

Entering the room hurriedly, Revere's face was flushed; and his hair, still beautiful, and in thick curling masses unstreaked with gray, was tossed in disorder over his head. Fifteen years

had left something of their impress on his face and form. His features had lost much of their delicacy; his fine elegant figure had approached almost to corpulency; and yet the general expression of his firm full lips and cold steel blue eyes, was little changed.

Approaching his wife with a careless "What! up yet, Jule?" he kissed her.

Julie recoiled slightly from the contact of those lips whereon lingered the nauseating fumes of wine and tobacco; but she replied, "Yes, Augustus, I have been expecting you for an hour past."

Mr. Revere was not intoxicated. Wine never affected him to drunkenness or imbecility. On the contrary, it seemed to sharpen his faculties to acuteness; therefore it had not escaped him that Julie shrank from him. His brow darkened.

"Well, it seems that even my return, at this late hour, is not welcome!" he exclaimed with an oath. 66 Jule, what the devil ails you? You're cold as an iceberg!"

For a moment the warm Southern blood of the proud woman was up in her cheek, and an angry retort trembled on her lips; but she did not utter it. Nervous, weak, weary with the evening's excitement, her watching, and his unkindness, she burst into tears.

Revere saw that he had gone too far; and he had a purpose to accomplish that night which would not permit him to injure her feelings past forgiveness; so he pushed a low ottoman towards his wife, and seating himself on it rested his head in her lap, saying soothingly:

"There, there, Jule, don't cry! I didn't mean anything; but it does vex me to come home late nights, and find you always up watching, pale as a ghost. But kiss me, Jule let us not quarrel! I'm confounded tired, and half-sick to-night."

Julie Revere's dark eyes swam in tears; but she crushed them back with the strong impulse of her forgiving love, and bent her head down to his, kissing his white forehead again and again, threading her fingers through his thick curls. Bitter thoughts had been in her heart; often, as she sat alone in her

desolation, the pride of her nature whispered, "Why do you love him so? He is unworthy!" But now, in the caresses she lavished on him, her woman's heart was the prompter. It was seldom of late that her husband had shown any symptom of tenderness so seldom, that, when such came, she drank them eagerly as desert travellers quaff the few precious drops bubbling up from the sand-spring. And so before the words he had that night uttered her pride had all melted; and she bent over him, kissing his forehead, murmuring "My dear Augustus! Love me, only love me!"

To say that she had been the wife of such a man as Augustus Revere for fifteen years without a knowledge of the life he led, would not be credible. That life had been the legitimate result of his youth. When, during the first years of the mercantile life, upon which, with the assistance of a liberal investment of her fortune inherited at her father's death shortly after her marriage, he embarked — when he often absented himself from her on the plea of detention at his counting-room, Julie readily excused him. Afterwards, on pretence of being engaged for the firm in extensive cotton speculations, he paid long visits to Southern cities writing thence repeatedly for loans and drafts on her banker, which she never refused; nor then, did the trusting woman once suspect how the passion of Gaming was obtaining complete ascendency over her husband.

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But latterly, when he seldom sought his home until the midnight hour was past, and then came, flushed and heated with wine, demanding money in harsh, irritable tones when, in his fitful slumbers, he babbled of cards and dice, winnings and losses, how then could poor Julie Revere fail to realize the degrading truth that she was the wife of a gambler?

Ah, she learned what almost broke her heart! but even then, her wifely devotion did not fail. No means were untried to win

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the deluded man from his ways. Faithful expostulations, pleadings, large loans to meet daily-recurring embarrassments, were all of no avail. Even remonstrances failed; answered only with reproaches, or days of absence and silent scorn — until, sinking under his coldness and neglect, she forbore them.

Sometimes, indeed-as for weeks, when Revere's winnings were great, and mercantile affairs went on smoothly— their life was calm; and if he was not profuse in his old-time lover demonstrations, at least he was not unkind, - and with an outward show of attention accompanied his wife into society, where his still elegant person and the polished manners he knew so well how to assume rendered him a favorite; but there were darker hours, when, maddened by losses, his demands for money became violent and imperious-and then again she yielded.

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Thus this proud impetuous woman, with her haughty Southern blood the mistress of a splendid household world of Fashion, where her example was patterned, her smile coveted, and her nod treasured - whose rare beauty enslaved others abroad -in her own home, was a very slave to the fascination of a love she hugged tighter to her heart; and literally purchased the favor and attentions of her own husband with

her fortune.

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But she said to herself, "I will bear it! I might have let him go his downward way alone I might have saved my fortune; but it was my pride to uphold him in his business relations with men — to make him master of a splendid home. And the world shall never know what return he has rendered me; they shall never gloat over my anguish, and say, 'Behold! an unloved, neglected wife!' I can bear his scorn - but no mocking pity! I will give festivals where rich and proud women shall envy me! - they shall envy me him, even! I will so cover his every error that, to the eyes of the world, he shall

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never be humbled. This, for a time, until the last dollar of my fortune has melted. for I cannot resign his love while I have the means of securing it this, for a time, until the crash comes and we sink together, and then

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Ah yes! That was the sad refrain to all her heart-cries, "What then?"

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It was a fatal stream on which Julie Revere had embarked, and she was powerless. Sometimes softest skies glassed themselves in waters on whose surface floated the rich blooming lotusflowers of Youth, Pleasure and Love-and the voyager's fair white hands were outstretched to grasp them. Alas, that they withered in her touch! But oftenest, thunder-clouds-hung aloft, and storms fell unpityingly — and the waves surged and boiled under her slight barque- and then came to her ears the roar of a deep dark cataract below. Sometimes Hope took the helm, and leaning forward, pierced the gloom with eagle vision, pointing to sunny skies and a pleasant shore beyond the wreck; but oftenest, dark, grim, sullen Despair sat at the prow, pointing downward, to the rushing fall. And so the boat drifted on. Already she felt the wilder rocking and swaying of the waves already she saw the seething, boiling foam the glassy brink over which she must glide; and the thunder-roar of the broken torrent echoed up from below.

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They were on the verge of the fall! For, that night, Julie Revere had given her last festival; the last eagle of her once princely fortune had been expended; heavy mortgages lay on her house, furniture, plate, and equipage; her splendid wardrobe and jewels, it is true, were yet untouched- but, as the miserable woman bent over the flushed face which lay on her lap, she knew that once again her husband had left the gaming table a loser, and was prepared to sacrifice these, her last available resource, for him. No wonder that she pleaded in a sad, hearthungry tone, "O, love me! only love me!"

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