And just then, to make matters still worse, Stanley Ginsling appeared upon the scene. Like the foul buzzard, he seemed to have scented his quarry from afar. And to add to the intense pain of Mrs. Ashton and her children, they were again boon companions. The strain was finally too great for poor Ruth. Like thousands of other poor, heart-broken wives and mothers, she used every endeavor to keep up her spirits and try and maintain her strength; but her sensitive mind was daily tortured with the most exquisite pain. Finally her strength gave way, and she was completely prostrated, all the more completely because of the unequal struggle she had been maintaining for the last few months. "A complete collapse of the system," said the doctor. "She must have good nursing and rest; for without she has rest of mind and body I cannot possibly bring her through." The doctor had a private interview with Ashton and told him, in language we will not repeat, for it was more energetic than select, that it was a shame for a man with his intelligence and refinement to so degrade himself, and then he added: "You are killing your wife, and if you do not desist from drinking it is very little use for me to come." But his appetite seemed to have so gained the ascendancy that he daily came home in a state of intoxication. He seemed to have lost every vestige of his manhood's strength, and was such a vile slave to his appetite as not to be able to restrain himself even to save his wife. CHAPTER XXII. THE DUNKIN ACT.--A DISCUSSION IN WHICH STRONG LANGUAGE IS USED. "I say, Judge, I hear they are about to try and carry the Dunkin Act in this county, and I guess they will succeed, for I think there are a sufficient number of fools and fanatical humbugs to carry anything. What is your opinion in regard to it?" The speaker was Sheriff Bottlesby, and the question was asked in one of the private rooms of the Bayton House--a house that was kept by Charles Rivers, Esq., and it was looked upon as the most respectable hotel in town. There were assembled there at this time Judge McGullet, Sheriff Botttesby, Captain McWriggler, who was an aspirant for the position of M.P., and whose only hope of success was in gaining the whiskey vote. There were also present Charles Dalton, Charles Sealey, Esq. (a prominent magistrate), Stanley Ginsling, and a retired captain--late of the British service--who rejoiced in the name of Timothy Flannigan. He kept a second-class tavern in Bayton, which was known as the "Crown Hotel." "Well," said the judge, "you ask me a question which you should not expect me, situated as I am, to answer. But," he continued with a chuckle, "I will say it may, but if it succeeds here this will be the first place it has ever done so."