On breaking into the room, Carleton was found lying upon the floor, with an empty vial beside him, and an unfinished letter to his sister on the table.
In that letter he confessed his guilt, and besought his sister not only to support the mortal affliction he had brought upon her, with fortitude, but also to sustain and console their mother. The young man was not yet dead. Medical assistance was speedily procured, but all efforts to save his life proved unavailing. He was already past consciousness, and never spoke again.
A veil should be drawn to exclude the scene of horror, agony, and distress that awaited his family. The brokenhearted mother survived the tragical interruption of her late happy days but a few months. And though the sister was afterwards happily married, it is said that, from the date of her brother's disgraceful end, a continual cloud of melancholy rested upon her mind during the remainder of her life. She has since passed into that land where kindred souls are destined to meet again; and these allusions to her sad family history will give her no pain.
The secret of Carleton's lapse from virtue is soon told; and the lesson is one that every youth, who considers himself secure from temptation, should heed and carefully remember. The devil never boldly enters the citadel of rectitude, at the outset. He first walks around, and passes by; then holds a parley, and "makes the worse appear the better reason;" and ends by gaining permission to walk in just once, promising thenceforward to cease his solicitations, and keep aloof. But once admitted, he goes artfully to work to destroy all our defences, and before we are aware of it, he is a permanent occupant of the castle.
Such was undoubtedly Carleton's experience. He was not a hardened sinner. He was truly a man of generous and noble impulses. But little transgressions of the stern law of conscience had in his boyhood weakened his moral force, and prepared him for more serious offences. Then, in an unguarded hour, he formed an attachment for a fascinating, but gay and heartless woman, under whose influences his soul fell from the truth and purity of manhood. It was her hand which indirectly administered the deadly drug that destroyed his life. To meet her necessities for dress and dissipations, he resorted to the faro bank. Although fortunate at first, he afterwards lost extensively, and became pecuniarily embarrassed. He borrowed money, which he was unable to return. Only one course seemed open to him, to save his honor in the public eye. At first, he purloined cautiously and abstemiously from the mails, hoping, no doubt, that success at the faro bank would swell those unlawful gains, and cancel the necessity for further depredations.
But let us not pursue the sad topic. The end we have seen, and we will hasten to turn the last leaf of this melancholy chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
A NIGHT IN A POST-OFFICE.