"Then came her temptation. Her father had died a year before, leaving her the trustee of her only sister, who was not yet of age. It had taken some little time to wind up his affairs; but on the day after she received her husband's letter of remonstrance, six thousand pounds out of her father's estate was paid into her banking account. By this time she was in one of those states of excitement and unreasoning terror to which she had been liable from her childhood. She took the trust money in order to pay the debts, and then gambled again in order to replace the trust money. Her motive throughout was the motive of the hunted creature. She was afraid of confessing to her husband, especially by letter. She believed he would cast her off--and in her despair and remorse she clung to his affection, and to the hope of his coming home, as she had never yet done. "In less than a month--in spite of ups and downs of fortune, probably skilfully contrived by Francis Wing and his accomplices--for there can be no question that the play was fraudulent--she had lost four thousand out of the six; and it is clear that more than once she thought of suicide as the only way out, and nothing but the remembrance of the child restrained her. By this time Francis Wing, who was a most handsome, well-bred, and plausible villain, was desperately in love with her--if one can use the word love for such a passion. He began to lend her money in small sums. She was induced to look upon him as her only friend, and forced by the mere terror of the situation in which she found herself to propitiate and play him as best she might. One day, in an unguarded moment of remorse, she let him guess what had happened about the trust money. Thenceforward she was wholly in his power. He pressed his attentions upon her; and she, alternately civil and repellent, as her mood went, was regarded by some of the guests in the house as not unlikely to respond to them in the end. Meanwhile he had told his wife the secret of the trust money for his own purposes. Lady Wing, who was an extremely jealous woman, believed at this time that he was merely pretending a passion for Mrs. Sparling in order the more securely to plunder what still remained of the six thousand pounds. She therefore aided and abetted him; and _her_ plan, no doubt, was to wait till they and their accomplices had absorbed the last of Mrs. Sparling's money, and then to make a midnight flitting, leaving their victim to her fate.