It was a pitiful story. He had had a sunstroke in India—the original excuse of so many drunkards—and a craving for stimulant had succeeded. Stronger and stronger grew the craving, weaker and weaker the power of resistance, until the habit of drink became so strong that the case was quite a scandal. “Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman,” was the official designation given to the offence for which he was cashiered from the army, and social ruin was the result. And down with the disgraced man went the wife and children. Society always generalises, and the stain of a name clings to the innocent bearers of it. Of course people pitied poor Mrs. Meek, but with such a husband who could visit her? So, with ruined career, with name disgraced, with shattered constitution, Captain Marshall Meek brought his family home to England, and by undue extravagance and gambling speedily exhausted the income his wife had brought him as dowry. His social disgrace seemed to have made him desperate—his weakness for drink certainly rendered him insensible to all the finer feelings of manhood, and he spared his wife no humiliation. [Illustration] She was the daughter of a proud and distinguished man, who had won his baronetcy by splendid services to the State, whose father and grandfather before him had won honourable reward from a grateful country. The men and women of her family were proud and spirited to an unusual degree, and when she went to them, socially and financially beggared, to ask assistance for her children, they answered her that she must separate herself from her drunken and disgraceful husband, and then they would see what could be done for her. But Mrs. Meek was wife before everything; whatever her husband had done, however he might drag her and their children down, whatever he might make her suffer in body and spirit, she was still his wife, and as she had vowed at the altar to love, honour, and obey, so would she strive to fulfil her vows. Therefore pitying and forgiving those of her kinsfolk who had urged her to what she considered the breaking of the marriage vow, she gave up all hope of their assistance, and determined to try and eke out what little was left of her fortune as best she could. Her pride had been sadly humbled, but she still had a remnant of independence. She still hoped to redeem her husband’s reputation, and woo him from the injurious ways of drink.