Every saloon he passed adding intensity to his craving.

At last his appetite overmastered him and he almost rushed into a saloon, and waited impatiently till he was served.

Every nerve seemed to be quivering with excitement, restlessness; and there was a look of wild despairing anguish on his face, as he clutched the glass to allay the terrible craving of his system.

He drank till his head was giddy, and his gait was staggering, and then started for home.

He entered the gate and slipped on the ice, and being too intoxicated to rise or comprehend his situation, he lay helpless in the dark and cold, until there crept over him that sleep from which there is no awakening, and when morning had broken in all its glory, Charles Romaine had drifted out of life, slain by the wine which at [last] had "bitten like an adder and stung like a serpent." Jeanette had waited and watched through the small hours of the night, till nature o'erwearied had sought repose in sleep and rising very early in the morning, she had gone to the front door to look down the street for his coming when the first object that met her gaze was the lifeless form of her husband.