The wrench of his parting with Roma lacerated his heart; the thought of his treachery toward her tortured his conscience. Was there a criminal on earth so black as he? Was there a soul in hell so miserable? What would Roma think of him when she should come to know his deed? Truly “a deed without a name,” that no law had ever forbidden, because no man or devil had ever dreamed of it! He loathed himself and his life as he loathed death and putrefaction. And yet it seemed to him that all he had done and all he had suffered was the work of unforeseen, irresistible destiny. He had never intended to do wrong. He had never thought it possible for him to commit one dishonorable act. He had aspired to live a perfectly upright and honorable life; to be a credit to the aged and widowed mother who had lost all on earth but him, and whose hopes in age and sorrow were centered on him; to be worthy of the noble girl who had given him her priceless heart, in his poverty and privation. He had labored and suffered to gain an education and a profession; he had denied himself not only all the pleasures of youth, but all the comforts of life; he had worn himself out with toil and want to this end! Then he had gone to the Isle of Storms as hotel clerk, not only to get up his strength in the bracing sea air and better living of the seaside resort, but to earn money enough to pay for his last college course. Ah! If he could have foreseen the end of his fatal sojourn there! He was lured into the downward path without seeing whither he was going. He was expected to be polite and obliging to the guests of the house, and he was willing and anxious to be so. When his office duties were not pressing he was expected to join in any amusement in which he might assist, and he was delighted to do so. For courtesy, he would take a hand at a game of cards where one was wanted to make up a party; for courtesy, he would take a glass of champagne when invited to do so, and he never dreamed of danger until destruction overtook him; never dreamed of wrong or danger until that fatal night in September when he fell into the trap of a professional gambler, and played and drank and drank and played, and drank again, until he lost his reason, and staked money that was not his own, and lost it to the gambler, who had been scheming for that very sum from first to last of the game. Was not that destiny? Forewritten, unforeseen, irresistible destiny? So it seemed to the wretched youth, as, leaning over the steamer’s side, gazing into the dark water of the bay, he reviewed the story. And then he remembered his vain pleadings, with groans and tears, to the obdurate gamester to return the embezzled money, if not as a restitution, then as a loan, to be repaid with usurious interest, if it took the loser’s whole life to do it.