Sent to India by his friends in the West Indies to make his way in the world, he entered one of the most important mercantile houses in Calcutta, purchasing a lucrative post in it. Mixing in the best society, for his introductions were undeniable, he in course of time met with a young lady named Pratt, who had come out from England to stay with her elderly cousins, Captain Pratt and his sister. Philip Hamlyn was caught by her pretty doll's face, and married her. They called her Dolly: and a doll she was, by nature as well as by name. "Marry in haste and repent at leisure," is as true a saying as the French one. Philip Hamlyn found it so. Of all vain, frivolous, heartless women, Mrs. Dolly Hamlyn turned out to be about the worst. Just a year or two of uncomfortable bickering, of vain endeavours on his part, now coaxing, now reproaching, to make her what she was not and never would be--a reasonable woman, a sensible wife--and Dolly Hamlyn fled. She decamped with a hair-brained lieutenant, the two taking sailing-ship for England, and she carrying with her her little one-year-old boy. I'll leave you to guess what Philip Hamlyn's sensations were. A calamity such as that does not often fall upon man. While he was taking steps to put his wife legally away for ever and to get back his child, and Captain Pratt was aiding and abetting (and swearing frightfully at the delinquent over the process), news reached them that Heaven's vengeance had been more speedy than theirs. The ship, driven out of her way by contrary winds and other disasters, went down off the coast of Spain, and all the passengers on board perished. This was what Philip Hamlyn had to confess now: and it was more than silly of him not to have done it before. He touched but lightly upon it now. His tones were low, his words when he began somewhat confused: nevertheless his wife, gazing up at him with her large dark eyes, gathered an inkling of his meaning. "Don't tell it me!" she passionately interrupted. "Do not tell me that I am only your second wife." He went over to her, praying her to be calm, speaking of the bitter feeling of shame which had ever since clung to him. "Did you divorce her?" "No, no; you do not understand me, Eliza. She died before anything could be done; the ship was wrecked." "Were there any children?" she asked in a hard whisper. "One; a baby of a year old. He was drowned with his mother." Mrs. Hamlyn folded her hands one over the other, and leaned back in her chair. "Why did you deceive me?" "My will was good to deceive you for ever," he confessed with emotion. "I hate that past episode in my life; hate to think of it: I wish I could blot it out of remembrance. But for Pratt I should not have told you now." "Oh, he said you ought to tell me?" "He did: and blamed me for not having told you already." "Have you any more secrets of the past that you are keeping from me?" "None. Not one. You may take my honour upon it, Eliza. And now let us----"