For some time I thought she would be the first victim of our hard destiny.

She seemed incapable of withstanding the agony that shook her frame.

While sharing in the hardships and the hazards of my struggle for life, her heart, sustained by its own deep enthusiasm, triumphed over every obstacle.

But she was returning to a house of mourning and of woe, where life would be one blank of desolation and stupor, to be wakened to bitter consciousness by intelligence of our doom.

The sense of my responsibility, the full appreciation of the living death which, through my agency, had fallen upon a home as hallowed as ever love and joy consecrated to happiness, had burned up my eyeballs and my brain.