“My ruin was at length complete; every thing was swept away. I had neither food for my family, nor a roof to shelter them. Before this, Emily had been {755} repeatedly urged by her relations to accept of an asylum with them, but she had refused to abandon me. She was as wretched as one could be who was free from all crime, and bowing, with unmurmuring meekness, to the hand that chastised her. She had nothing but her own unequalled goodness to sustain her. I had forgotten even to be kind, and yet she would not abandon me. But the time had now come when it was necessary that she should look to her friends for the bare necessaries of life; and the state of her health too required comforts and assistance not to be procured by poverty. For the present, therefore, she consented to remove, with our boy, to her father’s house. I did not accompany her, for I was fully aware that my society would be tolerated there only for her sake; and sunk as I was in my self-esteem, and justly degraded in the eyes of others, my pride could not brook any manifestation of the feelings entertained towards me. From the physician who attended her, I had daily reports of my wife’s health, which became more and more precarious. How could it be otherwise? Had I not destroyed her peace of mind?—had I not violated the sanctuary of her love?—had I not poisoned the source of her being? and with her wrung heart, must she not pine away, till merciful Heaven reclaimed its unequalled creation? My child too——but what claim had I to a husband’s or a father’s name? “One evening, as I sat in a room at a tavern, my temporary place of abode, gloomily reflecting on my situation—recurring, in agony of soul, to the happiness that I had forever cast from me, and painfully endeavoring to suggest to myself some plan by which I might retrieve, in part, my fallen fortunes, there was a knock at the door, and Roberts entered the room. He had been absent for some time, in one of the northern states, and he now approached me with seeming joy, and as if he anticipated from me an equally cordial welcome. His presence, however, was any thing but pleasing to me. I was largely indebted to him for money lost and loaned at cards; and when did debtor meet his creditor with joy at his heart? Besides, I had begun to feel, that but for my association with this man, I should never have plunged into the vortex that had overwhelmed me. He was aware of my coldness, and broke out with—‘Why, W., my dear fellow, what is the matter? Is this the way you receive an old friend after a six months’ absence? But you seem to be in the dumps; has any thing unusual occurred to fret you?’