But he had clasped that slight, girlish form in his arms--he had kissed that unkissed mouth, and drawn madness from it--he was the slave of his passion for better or for worse. Even when he thought more calmly over the whole matter on the following day, he still knew that his love for the girl was altogether his master. He still determined to press his suit. Even were she really bad, he must risk all, and make her his. But he knew that she was not really bad in heart, though she might have been in action. He would gain her confidence, share with her her repentance for her sin, take on himself her burden. Even had she been the most abandoned of creatures, he would take her to his arms now. Go back he could not--would not. And yet, of all men this was the one whom none would have suspected capable of making a rash marriage. Ah! how little we know how we ourselves would behave when the moment comes! We are all of us mad and weak then--yes, every one of us. CHAPTER XI. A WRECK. A week or so after the events related in the last chapter. It is about the hour when the theatres close, and the scene is the interior of the Albion--the well-known tavern near Old Drury, where actors and others of the male sex are wont to sup, after the play and opera are over. At a table is a man sitting by himself, moodily drinking whisky--which he takes with very little water--and smoking cigar after cigar. At a glance, you can see that he is a wreck--a gentleman who has become the slave of alcohol. His hand shakes, his eye is fierce and restless, and his three days' beard and unbrushed clothes show that carelessness of appearance which are the early signs of a man's going to the dogs through drink. The recklessness of a man who has lost his self-respect is apparent in his every gesture. This is Tommy Hudson, but terribly changed. He is not beautiful and refined of features now, but coarse, bloated, spirit-sodden. Not now are the bright, merry eyes, the hopeful buoyancy of manner; but, in their place, sullenness, or the sneers and flippancy born of a gnawing consciousness of degradation and failure. This man had known a lofty ideal--so was his fall the greater. The life of the young London barrister is perhaps the most perilous of all for weak natures such as his. Hundreds of promising young lives have fallen victims to its strong temptations. Living in solitary chambers, waiting for work that never comes, desponding at his want of success, the young man is driven out night after night into dissipation--first, by desire of society; lastly, by a morbid restlessness that makes dissipation a necessity.