In despatching the missive he said, "I can promise that if this note is delivered to Mrs. Arnot at once, the bearer shall be well paid." Moments seemed hours while he waited for an answer. Suppose the letter was not delivered--suppose Mrs. Arnot was absent. A hundred miserable conjectures flitted through his mind; but his confidence in his friend was such that even his morbid fear did not suggest that she would not come. The lady was at the dinner-table when the note was handed to her, and after reading it she rose hastily and excused herself. "Where are you going?" asked her husband sharply. "A person in trouble has sent for me." "Well, unless the _person_ is in the midst of a surgical operation, he, she, or it, whichever this person may be, can wait till you finish your dinner." "I am going to visit Egbert Haldane," said Mrs. Arnot quietly. "Jane, please tell Michael to come round with the carriage immediately." "You visit the city prison at this hour! Now I protest. The young rake probably has the delirium tremens. Send our physician rather, if some one must go, though leaving him to the jailer and a strait-jacket would be better still." "Please excuse me," answered his wife, with her hand on the door-knob; "you forget my relations to Mrs. Haldane; her son has sent for me." "'Her relations to Mrs. Haldane!' As if she were not always at the beck and call of every beggar and criminal in town! I do wish I had a wife who was too much of a lady to have anything to do with this low scum." A few moments later Mr. Arnot broke out anew with muttered complaint and invective, as he heard the carriage driven rapidly away. As by the flickering light of a dip candle Mrs. Arnot saw Haldane's pale, haggard face, she did not regret that she had come at once, for a glance gave to her the evidence of a human soul in its extremity. In facing these deep questions of life, some regard themselves as brave or philosophical. Perhaps it were nearer the truth to say they are stolid, and are staring at that which they do not understand and cannot yet realize. Where in history do we read--who from a ripe experience can give--an instance of a happy life developing under the deepening shadow of evil? Suppose one has seen high types of character and happiness, and was capable of appreciating them, but finds that he has cherished a sottish, beastly nature so long that it has become his master, promising to hold him in thraldom ever afterward;--can there be a more wretched form of captivity? The ogre of a debased nature drags the soul away from light and happiness--from all who are good and pure--to the hideous solitude of self and memory.