"Out of this depth of degradation I was rescued by a philanthropist, who had me fed and clothed and educated. I had at his hands every chance of leading a respectable life, but I did not want to become smug and honest. My early training was too strong for that, so after a year or two of enforced goodness I ran away to sea. The vessel I embarked on as a stowaway was bound for America. When I was discovered hiding among the cargo we were in mid-ocean, and there was nothing for it but to carry me to the States. Still, to earn my passage, I was made cabin-boy to a ruffianly captain, and once more tasted the early delights of childhood, viz., kicks, curses, and starvation. When the ship arrived in New York I was turned adrift in the city without a penny or a friend. "It is not my purpose to describe my sufferings, as such description will do no good and interest nobody; particularly as the purpose of this confession is to declare the Vrain conspiracy and its failure; so I will pass over my early years as speedily as possible. To be brief: I became a newsboy, then a reporter; afterwards I went West and tried my luck in San Francisco, later on in Texas; but in every case I failed, and became poorer and more desperate than ever. In New Orleans I set up a newspaper and had a brief time of prosperity, when I married the daughter of a hotelkeeper, and for the time was happy. "Then the Civil War broke out, and I was ruined. My wife died, leaving me with one child, whom I called Lydia, after her, but that child died also, and I was left alone. After the war I prospered again for a time, and married a woman with money. She also died, and left a daughter, and this child I again called Lydia, in memory of my first wife, who was the only woman I ever truly loved. I placed little Lydia in a convent for education, and devoted my second wife's money to that purpose; then I started out for the fifth or sixth time to make my fortune. Needless to say, I did not make it. "I pass over a long period of distress and prosperity, hopes and fears. One day I was rich, the next poor; and Fate--or whatever malignant deity looked after my poor affairs--knocked me about most cruelly, tossed me up, threw me down, and at the end of a score of years left me comparatively prosperous, with an income, in English money, of L500 a year. With this I returned to Washington to seek Lydia, and found her grown up into a beautiful and clever girl. Her beauty gave me the idea that I might marry her well in Europe as an American heiress. So for Europe we started, and after many years of travel about the Continent we settled down in the Pension Donizetti in Florence. There Lydia was admired for her beauty and wit, and courted for her money! But save for my ten pounds a week, which we eked out in the most frugal manner, we had not a penny between us.