"On the day on which my dear wife was pronounced out of danger, Jasper sent for me. My brother and I had ever been friends, though in no one particular were we alike. During the awful struggle through which I had just passed. I forgot both him and my father. Now I remembered him and my father's death, and our own business cares. A thousand memories came back to me. When he sent for me I left my wife's bedside and went down to him. I was feeling weak and low, for I had not been in bed for many nights, and a kind of reaction had set in. I was in a kind of state when a man's nerves can be shaken, and his whole moral equilibrium upset. I do not offer this as an excuse for what followed. There is no excuse for the dark sin; but I do believe enough about myself to say that what I then yielded to, I should have been proof against at a stronger physical moment. I entered my private sitting-room to find Jasper pacing up and down like a wild creature. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair tossed. He was a calm and cheerful person generally. At this instant, he looked like one half bereft of reason. 'Good heavens! what is wrong?' I said. I was startled out of myself by his state of perturbation. "'We are ruined; that is what is wrong,' answered Jasper. "He then entered into particulars with which I need not trouble you. A great house, one of the greatest and largest houses in the City, had come to absolute grief; it was bankrupt. In its fall many other houses, ours amongst them, must sink. "I saw it all quite plainly. I sat down quiet and stunned; while Jasper raved and swore and paced up and down the room, I sat still. Yes we were, beggars, nothing could save the house which our father had made with such pride and care. "After a time I left Jasper and returned to my wife's room. On the way I entered the nursery and paid my pretty little Charlotte a visit. She climbed on my knee and kissed me, and all the time I kept saying to myself, 'The child is a beggar, I can give her no comforts; we are absolutely in want.' It was the beginning of the winter then, and the weather was bitterly cold. The doctor met me on the threshold of my wife's room; he said to me, 'As soon as ever she is better, you must either take or send her out of England. She may recover abroad; but to winter in this climate, in her present state, would certainly kill her.' How bitter I felt; for was I not a beggar? How could I take my wife away? I sat down again in the darkened room and thought over the past. Hitherto the wealth, which was so easily won, seemed of comparatively small importance. It was easy with a full purse to wish, then to obtain. I had often wondered at Constance's love for all the pretty things with which I delighted to surround her, her almost childish pleasure in the riches which had come to her. She always said to me at such times: "'But I have known such poverty; I hate poverty, and I love, I love the pretty things of life.'