CHAPTER XL. Conclusion.




CHAPTER I.

A DEPARTURE.


"Richard, you will keep from drink, will you not, dear?" and the
speaker, in order to make her pleading irresistible, kissed the
one to whom these words were addressed again and again; and, as
with a hand upon each shoulder, she looked lovingly into his eyes,
there was an added pathos which, to a man of Richard Ashton's
sympathetic and sensitive nature, was all powerful.

"Well, Ruth, dear, God helping me, I will again be a man, and when
I am tempted I will think of my dear little wife and my darling
children at home; and remembering how they love me, though I have
been such an indifferent husband and father to them, I will not
touch nor taste the cursed stuff."

The tears gleamed in his eyes as he thus spoke, but feeling his
manhood was being compromised he endeavored to suppress them, the
effort, however, was in vain, for the deepest depths of a noble,
sensitive nature had been wrought upon by the loving appeal of his
wife and the pent-up feeling, gathering force by the very effort
which he had made to suppress it, manifested itself in a series of
short, choking sobs. He returned the kisses of his wife, clasped