rase, too, I'll be sworn! And then, having
once fallen, there will be no medium: he will become utterly corrupt;
while I, honest Dick Crauford, doing as other wise men do, cheat a trick
or two, in playing with fortune, without being a whit the worse for it.
Do I not subscribe to charities? am I not constant at church, ay, and
meeting to boot? kind to my servants, obliging to my friends, loyal to
my king? 'Gad, if I were less loving to myself, I should have been far
less useful to my country! And now, now let me see what has brought me
to these filthy suburbs. Ah, Madame H----. Woman, incomparable
woman! On, Richard Crauford, thou hast made a good night's work of it
hitherto!--business seasons pleasures!" and the villain upon system
moved away.

Glendower hastened to his home; it was miserably changed, even from the
humble abode in which we last saw him. The unfortunate pair had chosen
their present residence from a melancholy refinement in luxury; they had
chosen it because none else shared it with them, and their famine and
pride and struggles and despair were without witness or pity.

With a heavy step Glendower entered the chamber where his wife sat. When
at a distance he had heard a faint moan, but as he had approached it
ceased; for she from whom it came knew his step, and hushed her grief
and pain that they might not add to his own. The peevishness,
the querulous and stinging irritations of want, came not to that
affectionate and kindly heart; nor could all those biting and bitter
evils of fate which turn the love that is born of luxury into rancour
and gall scathe the beautiful and holy passion which had knit into one
those two unearthly natures. They rather clung the closer to each other,
as all things in heaven and earth spoke in tempest or in gloom around
them, and coined their sorrows into endearment, and their looks into
smiles, and strove each from the depth of despair to pluck hope and
comfort for the other.

This, it is true, was more striking and constant in her than in
Glendower; for in love, man, be he ever so generous, is always outdone.
Yet even when in moments of extreme passion and conflict the strife
broke from his breast into words, never once was his discontent vented
upon her, nor his reproaches lavished on any but fortune or himself, nor
his murmurs mingled with a single breath wounding to her tenderness or
detracting from his love.

He threw open the door; the wretched light cast its sick