“A change came suddenly upon Gilbert. There was no longer the lavish expenditure, the careless profusion: his looks and tone were altered. A haggard expression sat upon his handsome features, and the words of endearment no longer flowed from his lips; a quick footstep beneath the window made him start, strange-looking men visited him, his absences were long, his garments often changed: the vail was about to be lifted from my real position.
“One night he entered hastily, snatched me from the luxurious fauteuil on which I rested, and led me, without answering my questions, to a hackney-coach. We were speedily whirled away, and I never again beheld that home of splendor. By by-paths we entered a close and murky street, the coach was discharged, I was hurried over a dark miry road, and, passing through a court-yard, the gate of which closed behind us, was led without ceremony into a wretched apartment, thronged with fierce, ill-looking men, seated round a table well supplied with wines and ardent spirits. Our entrance was hailed with shouts. Gilbert was called by the name of ‘noble captain’ to the head of the table, and I was suffered disregarded to weep alone. I seated myself at length by the blazing fire, and then first knew the real horrors of my destiny.
“From their discourse I gathered that Gilbert had committed extensive forgeries, and had that night escaped the pursuit of justice. Bumpers of congratulation were drunk; plans of robberies discussed, and the gipsy captain chosen as the leader of the most daring exploits contemplated.
“Since that night, how fearful have been my vicissitudes! Sometimes, as the splendidly-dressed mistress of private gambling-rooms, I have received the selected dupes in a luxurious boudoir, decoying the victims by fascinating smiles into the snare laid for them by Gilbert and his associates. Sometimes, encamping with the wild gipsy tribe in some hidden dell or woodland haunt, where their varied spoils were in safe keeping. Anon, the painted and tinseled queen of an itinerant show, where Gilbert enacted the mountebank, and by the brilliance of his fascinating eloquence drew into his treasury the hard-earned savings of the rustic gazers.
“To all those degredations have I submitted, and now, oh, now, more than ever, has the iron entered into my soul! He has ceased to love me. I have become an encumbrance; my beauty has faded from exposure and neglect. I have sunk beneath his blows, have writhed beneath the bitterness of his sarcasms, his brutal jests, his scornful mockery of my penitence and tears. I have endured the agony of hunger while he rioted with his companions in profligate luxury; and yet, if the old smile lights up his countenance, the old look shines forth from his lustrous eyes, he is again to me the lover of my youth, and the past is a hideous dream. Oh, woman's heart, how unfathomable is thy mystery!”
The manuscript here ended abruptly. How sad a moral might be drawn from the history of this unfortunate! What rare gifts of mind and beauty had the want of religion marred and blighted! Had the Sun of Righteousness shone upon that ardent heart, its aspirations had been glorious, its course
“Upward! upward!
Through the doubt and the dismay
Upward! to the perfect day!”
What mournful tragedies are ever around us, flowing on with the perpetual under-current of human life, each hour laden with its mystery and sorrow, sweeping like dim phantoms through the arch of time, and burying the fearful records in the oblivion of the abyss beyond! How few of the floating wrecks are snatched from the darkening tide!