Duval's insidious arts were not unobserved by his intended victim. She noticed the gradual development of his pernicious principles, and shrunk with horror from their contaminating influence. She did not hesitate to communicate her observations to her husband,—but he, blinded by prejudice in favor of his friend, laughed at her scruples. Without a word of caution, therefore, his intercourse was continued,—and such was the weight of his ascendant power,—such the perfection of his deep laid scheme, and such his facility in glossing over what he termed pardonable, but which, in reality, were grossly licentious, indiscretions of language and conduct,—that even the lady herself was induced, in time, to believe that she had treated him unjustly. The gradual progress of licentiousness is almost imperceptible, and before she was aware of her error, she had drunk deeply of the intoxicating draught, and had well nigh become a convert to Duval's system of philosophy. Few who approach this fearful precipice are able to retrace their steps. The senses are bewildered,—reason loses its sway,—and a whirlpool of maddening emotions takes possession of the heart, and hurries the infatuated victim to irretrievable death. Before her suspicions were awakened, the purity of her family circle was destroyed. Duval enrolled on his list of conquests a new name,—the wife of his bosom friend!
An immediate divorce was the consequence. The misguided woman, who but late had been the ornament of society and the pride of her family, was cast out upon the world, unprotected, and without the smallest resource. The heart of the husband was broken by the calamity which rendered this step necessary, and he retired, with his children, to the obscurity of humble life.
At a late hour on one of those bitter cold evenings experienced in the early part of January, of the present year, two females, a mother and daughter, both wretchedly clad, stood shivering at the entrance of a cellar, in the lower part of the city, occupied by two persons of color. The daughter appeared to be laboring under severe indisposition, and leaned for support on the arm of her mother, who, knocking at the door, craved shelter and warmth for the night. The door was half opened in answer to the summons, but the black who appeared on the stairs, declared that it was out of his power to comply with the request, as he had neither fire,—except that which was furnished by a handful of tan,—nor covering for himself and wife. The mother, however, too much inured to suffering to be easily rebuked, declared that herself and daughter were likely to perish from cold, and that even permission to rest on the floor of the cellar, where they would be protected, in some degree, from the 'nipping and eager air,' would be a charity for which they would ever be grateful. She alleged, as an excuse for the claim to shelter, that she had been ejected, a few minutes before, from a small room which, with her daughter, she had occupied in a neighboring alley, and for which she had stipulated to pay fifty cents per week, because she had found herself unable to meet the demand,—every resource for obtaining money having been cut off by the severity of the season. The black, more generous than many who are more ambitious of a reputation for benevolence, admitted the shivering applicants, and at once resigned, for their accommodation for the night, the only two seats in the cellar, and cast a fresh handful of tan upon the ashes in the fire place.
It was a scene of wretchedness, want, and misery, calculated to soften the hardest heart, and to enlist the feelings and sympathies of the most selfish. The regular tenants of the cellar were the colored man and his wife, who gained a scanty and precarious subsistence, as they were able, by casual employment in the streets, or in neighboring houses. Having in summer made no provision for the inclemencies of winter, they were then utterly destitute. They had sold their articles of clothing and furniture, one by one, to provide themselves with bread, until all were disposed of, but two broken chairs, a box that served for a table, and a small piece of carpeting, which answered the double purpose of a bed and covering. Into this department of poverty were the mother and daughter,—lately ejected from a place equally destitute of the comforts of life,—introduced. The former was a woman of about fifty years, but the deep furrows on her face, and her debilitated frame, betokened a more advanced age. Her face was wan and pale, and her haggard countenance and tattered dress, indicated a full measure of wretchedness. Her daughter sat beside her, and rested her head on her mother's lap. She was about twenty-five years of age, and might once have been handsome,—but a life of debauchery had thus early robbed her cheeks of their roses and prostrated her constitution. The pallidness of disease was on her face,—anguish was in her heart.
Hours passed on. In the gloom of midnight, the girl awoke from a disturbed and unrefreshing slumber. She was suffering from acute pain, and in the almost total darkness which pervaded the apartment, raised her hand to her mother's face. 'Mother,' said she, in faltering accents, 'are you here?'
'Yes, child: are you better?'
'No, mother,—I am sick,—sick unto death! There is a canker at my heart,—my blood grows cold,—the torpor of mortality is stealing upon me!'
'In the morning, my dear, we shall be better provided for. Bless Heaven, there is still one place which, thanks to the benevolent, will afford us sustenance and shelter.'
'Do not thank Heaven, mother: you and I are outcasts from that place of peace and rest. We have spurned Providence from our hearts, and need not now call it to our aid. Wretches, wretches that we are!'