luncheon time; but when I went to my library, I found a packet on my table which I had not noticed there before. I opened it; it was full of unpaid bills, all made out to my wife in her maiden name, and most, indeed nearly all of them, for articles unsuited for female use. A horrible suspicion flashed across my mind. Could it possibly be that these were her brother's debts: that he had got these articles in her name, and had had the bills sent in to her? And could it be that brother and sister had been in league together, and that he with all his assumption of openness and candour and large-heartedness, had entrapped me into this marriage that I might liquidate the debts of an abandoned and reckless profligate? And could it be, farther, (madden ing thought!) that the _whole_ extravagance was not his, and that numerous unpaid accounts for wine and spirits were, partly, for what she had taken as well as her brother? Then I thought of the scene in the garden, of the wild laughter, of her sudden disappearance, of the signs of drinking in the summer-house. Oh! My heart turned sick; was I tricked, deceived, ruined in my peace for ever? I paced up and down my library, more like a lunatic than a sane man. Luncheon time came: we met: she threw herself into my arms, and wept and laughed and implored; but I felt that a drunkard was embracing me, and I flung her from me, and rushed out of the house. O misery! Whither should I go, what should I do? It was all too true: her brother was the basest of men: she did love _him_, I believe, it was the only unselfish thing about her. Well, I had to go back home; _home_! Vilest of names to me then! `home, _bitter_ home!' And yet I loved that poor guilty, fallen creature. There was a terrible light in her eyes as we sat opposite one another at dinner. We had to play a part before the footman. Oh! What a dreadful meal that was! I seemed to be feeding on ashes, and drinking wormwood. I felt as if every morsel would choke me. We spoke to one another in measured terms. Would the miserable farce of a dinner never be over? It came to an end at last. And then she came to me trembling and penitent, and, laying her head on my shoulder, wept till tears would fall no longer. She was sober then; she had taken nothing but water at dinner. She unburdened her heart to me (so I thought), and confessed all. She told me how she and her brother had been brought up, as children, in habits of self-indulgence, especially in having free access to the wine and spirits. She told me that she and her unworthy brother had been all in all to one another, that gambling and drink had brought him into difficulties, and that she had allowed him to run up accounts in her name. She declared that he really loved and valued me, and that the thought of hurrying on our marriage for any selfish object, was quite a recent idea, suggested by distress under pecuniary embarrassment.