"Late suppers and wines, and constantly seeing others, who should set the young better examples, going the road that ruins virtue, had its effect. If I had been properly restrained by my mother, had been kept at home nights, and never learned to sip fashionable intoxicating drinks, my mother would not have mourned 'a girl lost.'
"A few months after my first acquaintance with Sir Charles, I was living with him in a richly furnished house, in Eighteenth street, shamelessly passing as his wife, and treated as such by our acquaintance, although they knew that I was not. It was here that Katy was born, and received her first impressions of home and a fond father's love. Here I lived away my young womanhood in fashionable dissipation, and then Sir Charles died suddenly, and without a will. He had always said, he would make a will, and give his vast property to me and our child. But he put it off, as many others do, one day too long. Why do men defer this duty? A sacred duty to those they leave behind them, of their own flesh and blood. I knew, as his wife, I had rights; and I went to England to try and obtain them. I left my elegantly furnished house, which cost, I don't know how many thousand dollars to furnish, for my mother and my sister, and an uncle to occupy while I was gone. I found all the property in the hands of Sir Charles's brother, and he was unwilling to give up the share that rightfully belonged to his wife and child, because he said, we could not recover it by law. He did not say why, my conscience did. As a compromise, if I would give him a general release, he offered five thousand pounds. I would have taken it, but I had employed a lawyer, and he hooted at the idea; he looked for more than that for his fee when he recovered the full amount. I told him that I had no marriage certificate, and that the minister who married us was dead. So he was; Sir Charles was dead. I did not tell him that no other ever blessed our banns. I told him, that numerous persons would swear that they had heard him call me wife, and Katy his child. He said, that would do. I did not know that our opponents could produce as many more to swear, that they had heard Sir Charles say, that it was only a marriage of convenience. So, for an uncertainty of five hundred thousand as a mere prospect, I refused the certainty of five thousand, and went to law. The evidence stood so balanced that the judge could not decide. 'Let the wife be sworn. Let her say, upon her oath, that she was married to Sir Charles, and the case will be given in her favor.'
"There was a chuckling laugh just behind me, the tones of which went to my heart, and I fainted. It was De Vrai. He had known me in this city, and persecuted me with his importunities while Sir Charles was living. I had turned him off with a promise, all too common, 'when Sir Charles is dead.' Then he renewed his importunities, and I told him, to wait a respectful time. He followed me to England, and still pressed me, and I still put him off. He had hinted several times that if I recovered the suit, he well knew that he should lose his. It was him that furnished my opponent with a clue to the proof that we were never married. It was him that laughed in my ear when the case rested upon the question, whether I would swear that I was married or not. For a moment, for the sake of my child, I was tempted; that laugh recalled me partially, and I was carried away in a litter, and the case adjourned. For aught I know it still remains adjourned.
"De Vrai followed me to my hotel. I was in a state bordering upon distraction. With a foolish pride, to keep up appearances, as the wife of Sir Charles, I had exhausted all my means, and run awfully in debt. I had written to my uncle, in New York, to sell my furniture at auction, and send me the money. After a long delay I got five hundred dollars, and a very short letter, saying, that was all the nett proceeds. I felt, I cannot tell how. I knew I was cheated, and wrote a bitter letter back. Then, my own friends, those who had fawned around the rich mistress of Sir Charles, cast off the poor woman struggling to recover something for his child. In this she failed, because that child was not born in wedlock.
"I was now poor indeed. What could I do, alone in a strange land? I knew that De Vrai had no affection for me, only such as one animal has for another, but in my despair I married him.
"His means of living were derived from the same source that hundreds of well-dressed gentlemen derive theirs from, in this city. He was a gambler; a genteel gambler. Such as you may find in every hotel in New York, in every public place, dressed in the very best style, living in the most expensive manner, with no trade, occupation, or exercise of mind or skill, except the skill of cheating at card playing.
"At first, we lived pleasantly; but pleasures with such men are short-lived, and must be often changed. If successful in business—that is what they call their nefarious employment—they are all smiles and affection to wife and children; but if 'luck is against them,' they are the most unhappy men in the world, and make everybody else unhappy around them. As for enduring conjugal affection, I believe the excitement of a gambler's life renders them incapable of feeling its influence. I can scarcely tell how the months passed which I lived with that man, for I drank wine to excess every day. Not to become intoxicated; only just fashionably excited. We lived in the best style of hotel life, often at the expense of the proprietors.
"A little before Sis was born, De Vrai met with 'a run of luck,' and we took a cottage out of town, and lived very comfortably for a year, upon the proceeds of that 'windfall.'
"What that run of luck was, may be guessed at from the following extract from a morning paper:—
"Suicide.—An American gentleman was found dead in his bed, at his lodgings, this morning, and it is supposed he died from poison, administered by himself, in consequence of immense losses at the gaming table, not only of his own money, but a sum which he had received in trust for a widow and orphans, in America. It is said, that he owes his losses to the wretched practice of drinking to intoxication, and that he was fairly robbed while in this condition, by a companion of his, one who made great pretence of friendship. He leaves a beautiful young wife, 'quite destitute,' 'tis said."