"Oh! Theodore, Theodore, is this your love for me? Would you ruin my body and my soul? Have pity on me. Have pity on me."
"Marie," said Theodore, "you love me not; you will drive me mad," he exclaimed, and he turned abruptly away, as if about to leave the room.
"He says that I love him not!" cried Marie, wildly, as she sprang to her feet, and in another moment she was again clasped in her lover's arms.
Raub was not less expert in soothing the soul of Marie that was now stricken with remorse, and in quieting the anguished alarms that succeeded the moments of pleasure, and under reiterated promises of marriage, poor Marie retained within her own breast the secret of her ruin, until nature was about, in its own mysterious way, to proclaim her shame itself. As soon as Raub became aware of the fact that Marie was about to become a mother, he absconded from New Orleans, and instead of carrying out his repeated promises to the injured and ruined fair one, he came on to New York, leaving her unconscious and ignorant of his whereabout.
Marie, with that pertinacity which belongs peculiarly to a wronged and neglected woman, tracked him to this city, and demanded of him here the only atonement he could make before man and before God, namely—marriage. To all these entreaties Raub turned a deaf and defiant ear, and, at the suggestion of the French Consulate in this city, Marie retained the services of Howe & Hummel, and proceedings were taken which brought the contumacious Theodore to a satisfactory fiscal arrangement so far as Miss Blanchette was concerned.
[L]ife on the Boston Boats.
A FAST WOMAN WRONGFULLY ACCUSED.
Maria Wilson is a beautiful woman, and of that age at which most women are admired by men. She is courteous, affable and lady-like in her manner. So far as appearances go, she is just such a woman as most men would like to have for a wife. But appearances often deceive. Maria has fallen from grace, just as mother Eve did before her.
Her beauty has perhaps to her been her greatest misfortune; without it she might be virtuous; with it she certainly is not. Like many others of her erring sisters, see desires to live like a lady; to dress well; go to the opera in season; go to the theater and, indeed, to every other place where woman is likely to go.
Unfortunately for Miss Wilson, though born pretty, she was not born rich. The good things of this world were not given to her very abundantly. Work, she wouldn't. For some reason or other, certainly not a valid one, work appears degrading to some people. So it appeared to Miss Wilson.