This saintly Colonel was no better than other people. In Brussels, unknown to his wife, he had gambled heavily and incurred great losses. In the public dining-hall of the ancient Spartans there was a notice to the effect that no one was to repeat outside the conversation that took place within. In the club of which the Colonel was a member a similar law of honour prevailed, and as the place was outwardly respectable, and was situated in the most respectable _quartier_, and as its members were men who moved in the first circles on the Continent, it was assumed, of course, that nothing took place but what was respectable. And it was presumed that if its members kept late hours the fact was due to the interesting conversations of the men on the political and other stirring questions of the times. In reality the place was a gambling den of the worst description, where the losers were far greater in numbers than the winners; and amongst the former was our pious Colonel, who had immense faith in his own play, as in everything else that he did, and whose occasional gains, only by confirming his own good opinion of himself, helped him further into the mire. Then all at once it became known that the worthy Colonel had other children than his legitimate ones. In certain quarters he passed under a feigned name—as Captain Smith—and children learned to know him under that alias. It was a pleasant retreat for the good man when the old Adam was rather strong and seemed ready to crush the renewed man; and thus he led, as many do, a double life. Most men have their weak moments, their time of temptation, and too often they succumb, but then the falling off is only for a time. But in the Colonel’s case it had unfortunately grown into a settled habit. My lady little dreamt of what was passing. She had other things to think of than her husband or his doings. She was active—perhaps, rather too active—in her sphere, in good works. The bluest Evangelical blood was in her veins, and when in London no one was a more frequent visitor to the country houses of pious bankers and brewers than herself. In them she was a diamond of the purest water, shining with every Christian grace and virtue. She had addressed drawing-room meetings, she had aided in many a crusade against Popery and Ritualism and other evil things. If any Liberal and devoted clergyman was to be persecuted for trying to elevate the people by Christian ideas not in accordance with her own, she was the first to raise the cry of heresy, to rouse up sleepy bishops, to raise the cry of ‘Treason in the sanctuary!’ to alarm the warders at the gate, to flood the land with cheap tracts and pious newspapers. At Exeter Hall, during the May meetings, there was no more ardent attendant; and her life in Brussels was much the same, though on a smaller scale.