given me a sister for my boy. Our cup of joy seemed
full to overflowing. The mother and child throve as well as any one
could expect. She was to get up next day, and I was to carry her down
stairs, and set her for a little amongst her flowers in the little
drawing-room. I wished her good-bye gaily that morning as I went off to
my work, and bade her be ready for me when I returned.

"Ah! what a return that was! At mid-day a messenger rushed into the
bank and called to me to come at once to my wife. I flew to her on the
wings of terror, and found her--dead!"

Here the speaker paused again. His voice had trembled at the last word,
but his face was almost fierce as he turned his eyes to me.

I said nothing, but my heart bled for him. "The hope had gone from my
life. I had no ballast, nothing to steady me in the tempest. My hope
had been all in the present, and it perished with her. I cared for
nothing, my little children were a misery to me, the old home was
unendurable. I got leave of absence from my employers, and came up
here--desperate. I dashed into every sort of dissipation and
extravagance; I tried one excitement after another, if only I could
drown every memory I had. I abandoned myself to so-called `friends' of
the worst sort, who degraded me to their own level, then forsook me.
Still I plunged deeper--I was mad. My one dread was to have a moment to
myself--a moment to think of my home, my children, my wife. How I lived
through it all I cannot think--and I did not care.

"At last a letter reached me from my employers, requiring my presence at
business. My money had long gone, my creditors pressed me on every
hand, my friends one and all mocked at my destitution. I returned to
---, hiding before my employers the traces of my madness, and letting
them wonder how grief had changed me. My home I could not go near--the
sight of it and of the children would have driven me utterly mad. I
lived in the town. For a week or so I tried hard to keep up
appearances--but the evil spirit was on me, and I could not withstand
him. I had not then learnt to look to a Greater for strength. I must
fly once more from one misery to another tenfold worse.

"But I had no money. My savings were exhausted. My salary was not due.
I dared not beg it in advance. I was manager of the bank, and had
control over all that was in it. The devil within me tempted me, and I
yielded. I falsified the accounts, and tampered