"I was alone in the house to which I had brought my wife, a bride. All the servants had been paid off, and had left. I had arranged this because I could not endure that they should see the sacrifice I was making. Memories of the past rushed upon me--of my young wife's delight as I took her through the rooms, of the fond endearments at my cleverness and forethought, of the happy evening we passed, sitting in the gloaming and talking of the future. Alas, the future! How fearful the contrast between my young bride's fond imaginings and the reality! In solitary communing I strolled through the rooms and marked each spot and each article hallowed by some cherished recollection. The piano at which she used to sit and sing in the early days of our marriage, the window from which we used to watch the sunset, the small articles on her dressing-table--there seemed to be a living spirit in them that greeted me reproachfully, and asked, 'Why have you done this? Why have you blighted that fair young life?' Our Clair was born in the house. The cot in which she slept was there, her favorite child-pictures hung upon the wall. What pangs went through me as I surveyed the wreck of bright hopes! 'But I will atone for it,' I said inwardly. 'When fortune is mine once more I will confess all, and ask my dear wife's forgiveness. Then, then for the happy future!' No warning whispers reached me. No voice cried,' Sinner and fool! You have done what can never be undone. Not only fortune, but love, is lost forever!'
"If I dwell upon these small matters, Rathbeal, it is because the impressions of that lonely hour are as strong within me now as then, and because they are pregnant with an awful lesson.
"The hour over, the broker returned with wagons and men. As he paid me the money his workmen commenced to remove the furniture. I left the house to their mercies, and went to meet the men to whom I was indebted. I paid them to the last shilling, and, honor satisfied, was master of a sum sufficiently large, I thought, to carry on my operations at Monte Carlo. I played at the club that night, and lost a few pounds. It did not affect me; I was rather glad, indeed, for it pointed to the road where wealth awaited me. I had taken a bed in a hotel, but an impulse seized me to visit my house once more. It was two in the morning when I turned the key and lit the hall gas. My footsteps resounded on the dusky passages. The broker had been expeditious; everything in the house was removed, and I seemed to be walking through a hollow grave--but it was a grave, haunted by ghostly shadows, eloquent with accusing voices. I shut my eyes, I put my hands to my ears, but I still saw the ghostly shadows and heard the accusing voices. I rushed from the house, conscience-stricken and appalled.