And then to be accused of being ungrateful. That was worse than all. Then she thought that perhaps she had been. Mrs. Laylor had told her several times how much wine some girls could induce gentlemen to buy, and how much profit she made upon every bottle; and more than that, she had hinted very strongly how much money such a handsome woman as Athalia could make, if she was disposed to; and then she told a story about a young clergyman that used to come there, and what a great fool he was when he drank a little wine, and how she made a hundred dollars out of the simpleton, and a great deal more; but she did not tell her how she cheated him, nor how she had cheated Athalia out of her seventy dollars, nor that Frank Barkley had paid her board, which she was now trumping up an account for, so as to drive her to the seeming necessity of selling her body and soul to escape from the tangled web which this human spider was weaving around this poor weak fly.
In the course of the day, after this overheard conversation, Mrs. Laylor came to tell Athalia "that she had succeeded at last in obtaining her watch and Bible, by paying thirty dollars out of her own pocket, although she did not know how in the world to spare it, but she supposed Mrs. Morgan would repay it almost immediately."
Repay it! How could she? And so she said bitterly that she had no hope. Her heart was almost broken. Mrs. Laylor, of course, condoled with her, soothed her, reassured her of her pure friendship, took out the watch and put the chain over her neck, sent down and had the Bible brought up, and with it a bottle of wine, one of the half brandy sort, and insisted upon her drinking of it freely, and driving off the blues; and then, after she had got her into a state of partial intoxication, and fit for any act of desperation, sent for Frank Barkley, who had just arrived, to come up to Athalia's room, and play a game of cards. She had never before consented to that, but now Mrs. Laylor was there, and she desired it, and so he came. It had been all previously arranged that he should, and that he should order another bottle of wine—mixed wine—and then Mrs. Laylor was called out, and went suddenly, saying as she did so:
"Let the cards lie, I will be back in a minute."
That minute never came. That night was the last of conscious purity which had so long sustained Athalia through all her trials.
For the next six months she never allowed herself to think. She was lost. The instruments of darkness had betrayed her into the deepest consequences.
The scene shifts.
Shall we see Athalia again?