Time, business, worldly hopes and cares, the triumphs and defeats of an exciting profession, gradually weakened the impression made upon me by the gentle virtues of Edith Willoughby; and when, about fifteen months after the wedding, my wife informed me that she had been accosted by Mrs. Harlowe at a shop in Bond Street, my first feeling was one of surprise, not untinged with resentment, for what I deemed her ungrateful neglect. "She recognized you then?" I remarked. "Recognized me! What do you mean?" "I thought perhaps she might have forgotten your features, as she evidently has our address." "If you had seen," replied my wife, "how pale, how cold, how utterly desolate she looked, you would think less hardly of her. As soon as she observed me, a slight scream escaped her; and then she glanced eagerly and tremblingly around like a startled fawn. Her husband had passed out of the shop to give, I think, some direction to the coachman. She tottered towards me, and clasping me in her arms, burst into a passion of tears. "Oh, why--why," I asked as soon as I could speak, "why have you not written to us?" "I dared not!" she gasped. "But oh tell me, do you--does your husband remember me with kindness? Can I still reckon on his protection--his support?" I assured her you would receive her as your own child: the whispered words had barely passed my lips, when Mr. Harlowe, who had swiftly approached us unperceived, said, "Madam, the carriage waits." His stern, pitiless eye glanced from his wife to me, and stiffly bowing, he said, "Excuse me for interrupting your conversation; but time presses. Good-day." A minute afterwards, the carriage drove off." I was greatly shocked at this confirmation of my worst fears; and I meditated with intense bitterness on the fate of a being of such meek tenderness exposed to the heartless brutalities of a sated sensualist like Harlowe. But what could be done? She had chosen, deliberately, and after warning, chosen her lot, and must accept the consequences of her choice. In all the strong statutes, and sharp biting laws of England, there can be found no clause wherewith to shield a woman from the "regulated" meanness and despotism of an unprincipled husband. Resignation is the sole remedy, and therein the patient must minister to herself. On the morning of the Sunday following Edith's brief interview with my wife, and just as we were about to leave the house to attend divine service, a cab drove furiously up to the door, and a violent summons by both knocker and bell announced the arrival of some strangely-impatient visitor. I stepped out upon the drawing-room landing, and looked over the banister rail, curious to ascertain who had honored me with so peremptory a call. The door was quickly opened, and in ran, or rather staggered, Mrs. Harlowe, with a child in long clothes in her arms. "Shut--shut the door!" she faintly exclaimed, as she sank on one of the hall seats. "Pray shut the door--I am pursued!"