Gold—deceitful gold—was the will-o'-the-wisp which led them on through the devious ways of iniquity, until they suddenly found themselves in Newgate!
For the woman forged for gold—and the man sold his daughter's virtue for gold; and from the moment when Torrens consented to that vile deed, every thing went worse with him—nothing was bettered—and the circumstances resulting from that one act, combined to overwhelm him with afflictions, and even to fix upon him a horrible charge of which he was really innocent!
To err, then, is to be foolish, as well as wicked;—and this grand truth has doubtless been felt and acknowledged, when too late, by many and many a wretched being within those very walls and that sombre enclosure of Newgate!
Newgate!—what numberless ties have been severed on its threshold;—and what countless thousands of individuals, on entering that dread portal one by one, have gnashed their teeth with rage at the folly, even though they have felt no compunction for the guilt, of the career which they pursued and which had its natural ending there!
It was ten o'clock in the morning, when a hackney-coach stopped at the door of the governor's house, which stands in the centre of the front part of Newgate; and a fine, tall, handsome young man, having leapt forth, assisted a closely veiled lady to alight from the vehicle.
They were almost immediately admitted into the office of the governor, the young lady clinging to her companion's arm for support, for she was labouring under the most dreadful mental anguish.
These persons were Clarence Villiers and his beauteous bride, Adelais.
Returning from Devonshire, whither they had been to pass the honeymoon, they heard on the road, ere they reached the metropolis, the astounding intelligence that the aunt of the one had been committed to Newgate on a charge of forgery, and that the father of the other was consigned to the same place under an accusation of the murder of Sir Henry Courtenay. They also learnt at the same moment and for the first time, that the wretched pair had only just been united in matrimonial bonds when this fearful fate overtook them; but they were too much shocked by the more grave and serious portion of the tidings which thus burst upon them, to give themselves even leisure to express their surprise at the less important incident of the marriage of Mr. Torrens and Mrs. Slingsby.
They had arrived in London on the preceding evening, and had repaired direct to Torrens Cottage, hoping—and, indeed, expecting as a matter of course—to find Rosamond there.