"O, sir," said she, "my troubles took such a shape that I knew you could not help me--nobody can. I am driven on by despair; but for my child, I think I should have long since committed the crime of suicide," and the tears streamed from her eyes. I was so convulsed with sympathy that I could hardly speak, but mustering as firm a voice as I could, I said, "Madam, have hope. There never was a case so desperate yet, but some chance of escape might be involved in it. I do not wish to pry into your affairs, but I know you are suffering wrongfully, and I could wish that you might tell me enough to enable me to see if I cannot help you; and let me say here, that I know enough already to be aware that your chief trouble is in some way connected with Le Roy." "Le Roy!--do you know him? "she exclaimed. "Ah, I forget. You know him, of course; but do you know any more about him than travelling with him that day--and what do you know?" "Yes, I know him as a miserable villain,--heartless and coarse." "I think you must know him, for he is all that you call him. That he is heartless and coarse, repulsive and tyrannical, is true. I do not know that he is criminal; but I fear he is. Do you know?" "Yes, he is; as such a nature could not well otherwise be--" "O, then my condition is worse than I thought," said she, sobbing. I consoled her all I could, and in the result induced her to acquaint me with her story,--and it was a fearful one, in many respects,--which I shall not here relate; bad enough, as you will see, in those which I shall tell. It was, in brief, this. She had married privately the son of a wealthy man, who had intended that his son should form an alliance with the daughter of an old schoolmate of his, a wealthy New York merchant, residing in Brooklyn. But the young man could conceive no affection for this young lady--revolted; declared that he had a right to choose a wife for himself. His father, who had intended to get him up in business with a large capital, being angry with his son's refusal to even attempt the alliance he desired for him, turned him off with only a comparatively small amount of money, and threatened that if he ever married anybody else but the girl he desired him to marry, he would cut him off in his will. The son, falling in love with the lady in question, married her privately; and it so chanced that Le Roy, happening to be at the minister's house, calling on a servant girl, at the time of the marriage, was called in with the girl as a witness. The son, Mr. Stevens, had gone to Europe, and died there. But, just before his death, his father had died intestate, and the son's child became entitled to her part--a fourth, if I rightly recollect--of a large estate; but there was no evidence of the marriage save that which Le Roy could furnish; as the servant girl had gone nobody knew where. An advertisement in the Herald had failed to find her,--she might be