The steamboat would leave the next morning for Charleston. She waited in vain for Walter, and then wrote a long letter, detailing all the facts and giving ample reasons for her course, and begging him to abandon his; to settle up what matters he had as soon as possible and follow her. Then she laid down for a short nap, with orders to Mary to wake her if Mr. Morgan came in, and if not, to call her in time for the boat at any rate, and then to give him the letter. It was an impulsive step, but that was her nature. "So it was. She always thought and acted at the same moment; and almost always right." In one week she was back in her old room, which she had let temporarily during her absence. In one week more she had an additional room and a few girls at work for her at dress-making. She issued her little card, sent it around to old customers, and got some new ones, and all the work that she could do. In three months she had ceased to pay rent for furniture; she had bought and paid for it, and was making weekly deposits of little sums in the savings bank. Then her husband came back. Where his thousand dollars had gone you may judge, when I tell you that Athalia had to go and redeem his trunk, retained on board a brig for his passage. He could not go himself for it, he was sick; with what complaint you may easily judge; I shall not tell you, as he did not tell his wife, until she too was sick, and in her ignorance, neglected to call a physician, until so bad that she was laid up from work, and of course lost custom. How her little store melted under this accumulation of expense! Finally, they got agoing again, and she persuaded him to get into some kind of employment. What could he do? There was but one "genteel"--mark the word--business that he knew of. He became a bar keeper. He had one regular customer. It was Walter Morgan! Down hill is an easy road. He took it. Athalia soon found some of her best customers dropping off. "What was the cause?" There were two. In the first place Walter had been the means of getting a notorious courtezan to give her custom to his wife. He brought her there and introduced her as Mrs. Layton, formerly of South Carolina, now living with her nieces and daughter in this city. She used to come often, always in her carriage, with liveried servants. Once Athalia rode home with her to fit a dress to "a sick young lady, that boarded with her." She found that Mrs. Layton lived in an elegant four story house, near a church and in a very respectable neighborhood in a fashionable street. Her rooms were furnished with a degree of splendor almost equal to the Morgans. Little did she suspect the character of the house, particularly as her husband had introduced her there.