When to his remorse on his mother's account was added the shame and misery occasioned by the discovery of his wife's degradation, he sank under the double trial--his face began to alter fast, and he looked what he was, a spirit-broken man.
His mother, still struggling bravely against the illness that was hurrying her to the grave, was the first to notice the sad alteration in him, and the first to hear of his last worst trouble with his wife.
She could only weep bitterly on the day when he made his humiliating confession, but on the next occasion when he went to see her she had taken a resolution in reference to his domestic afflictions which astonished and even alarmed him.

He found her dressed to go out, and on asking the reason received this answer: "I am not long for this world, Isaac," she said, "and I shall not feel easy on my death-bed unless I have done my best to the last to make my son happy.

I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and to go with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her.

Give me your arm, Isaac, and let me do the last thing I can in this world to help my son before it is too late." He could not disobey her, and they walked together slowly toward his miserable home.
It was only one o'clock in the afternoon when they reached the cottage where he lived.

It was their dinner-hour, and Rebecca was in the kitchen.