“Instantly there flashed over me the thought ‘if Anna could only dress and live like the ladies of Madison Square,’ but with it came the knowledge of how she would disapprove, and I hesitated. The temptation was a strong one, and as I continued to listen I felt my good resolutions giving way. Just for once, and that should be the last, I said, consenting to join my comrade, who evidently believed all he said of the stranger. Ten o’clock found me at Stanley’s rooms, opposite my antagonist, whom I at once pronounced a fool. Eleven found me the winner of a considerable amount. Twelve o’clock, my lucky star was still in the ascendant, but when two o’clock of that Sunday morning struck, I was ruined, and my opponent held my note for $20,000.
“Desperate, distracted, what could I do but forge my uncle’s name for the amount, taking the precaution to draw from three or four banks where he had funds deposited, and this I did without a thought of the consequences; but when I woke to the peril of my situation I was mad with fear, and determined to run away. But first I wrote to Anna, telling her I was going, but withheld the reason why. After the letter was sent I was seized with a terror lest she by some means should betray me, and so I be brought to justice. My love for her was strong, but dread of a prison life was stronger. Of Uncle Jason I asked and received permission to visit Morrisville for a week, and when I left him he thought I was going home, but I went instead to Boston, reaching there in the night, and next morning hiring a boy to take a note to Anna. She was alone when it was delivered, as the family were out on some shopping expedition. In much alarm she came to the Revere, where I was to meet her, and there the horrible truth was revealed that she was the wife of a felon. She had not received my letter, and what I told her was wholly unexpected. She did not faint, nor scream, nor even reproach me with my sin. She merely sank upon her knees and prayed that I might be forgiven, while into her eyes and face there stole a look which I know now to have been the germ of insanity which afterwards came upon her.
“‘Anna,’ I said, when her prayer was ended and she sat with her face upon the table, ‘I am going to England in a vessel which sails to-night, and from there to California, assuming the name of John Maxwell, and you must not betray me.’
“Betray you! O Robert!” and the face she lifted up looked as grieved as if I had struck her.
“‘I know you will not do it voluntarily,’ I said, ‘but you must not make yourself liable to be questioned. No one knows I am here. No one knows you are my wife, and no one must know it. Not yet, at least not till it is settled somehow, and I come back to claim you, or send for you to join me.’
“Again she looked wistfully at me, and I continued: ‘If Uncle Jason knew you were my wife, he would question and cross-question you until he frightened it out of you, and I should be captured. I deserve to go to prison, I know, but Anna, darling, think how terrible for one so young to be shut out from this world, wearing my life away. Promise, Anna, and I will be a better man; I will earn enough to pay it back. Promise, if, indeed, you love me.’
“I was kneeling at her feet, sueing almost for my life. I was her husband, and she loved me, erring as I was, and she promised at last to keep her marriage a secret until I said she might tell. I ought to have been satisfied with her word, but each moment the dread of arrest grew greater, and taking the Bible which lay upon the table, I said, ‘Swear with your hand on this.’
“Then she hesitated, but I carried my point, and with her hand on the book she loved so much, she took an oath not to tell, and fell fainting to the floor. I restored her as soon as possible, and led her through obscure streets back to Mr. Haverleigh’s dwelling. I dared not kiss her as I parted with her at the gate, for it was broad day, but I shall never forget the look in her eyes as they rested on my face, while she said, ‘Good-by, Robert. Ask God daily to forgive you as I shall do.’
“I wrung her cold, damp hand, and hurried away, seeing the Haverleigh carriage drive up the street just as I turned into another, and knew that Anna must have been safe in her room when the family returned.”
“Poor Anna,” sobbed Mrs. West. “That was the time when Rosa Haverleigh found her upon the floor totally unconscious. She was never herself after that, and as they could not rouse her to an interest in anything, they sent her back to us, a white-faced, frightened, half crazed creature even then. O Robert, my son, how much sorrow you have wrought,” and the poor mother wept piteously as she remembered the young girl whom she in thought had wronged, and who she now knew had died for the erring Robert, and kept silence even when to do so was to bring disgrace and death upon herself.