The Ways of Desolation

"Oh! colder than the wind that freezes
Founts, that but now in sunshine play'd,
Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom when betray'd."--Moore.

Four months had elapsed since the honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern,
and Anna was living at Waltham with her mother who grew more fretful
and complaining every day. The marriage was still the secret of Anna
and Sanderson. The honeymoon at the White Rose had been prolonged to a
week, but no suspicion had entered the minds of Mrs. Moore or Mrs.
Standish Tremont, thanks to Sanderson's skill in sending fictitious
telegrams, aided by so skilled an accomplice as the "Rev." John Langdon.

Week after week, Anna had yielded to Sanderson's entreaties and kept
her marriage a secret from her mother. At first he had sent her
remittances of money with frequent regularity, but, lately, they had
begun to fall off, his letters were less frequent, shorter and more
reserved in tone, and the burden of it all was crushing the youth out
of the girl and breaking her spirit. She had grown to look like some
great sorrowful-eyed Madonna, and her beauty had in it more of the
spiritual quality of an angel than of a woman. As the spring came on,
and the days grew longer she looked like one on whom the hand of death
had been laid.

Her friends noticed this, but not her mother, who was so engrossed with
her own privations, that she had no time or inclination for anything
else.