There is neither turn nor winding in it, nor escape from the destiny to
which it leads. She has taken the first step in it, and must follow it to
the end. Look at the reckless and abandoned of her sex, who crowd our
thoroughfares at night. _Their_ fate must be _her_ fate; an outcast--then
the tenant of a public prison where her associates will be the thief and
the felon. That's her second step. The third is--to her coffin; broken
down; beggared, perhaps starving, she'll die surrounded by the offscouring
of the earth--happy if she reaches her grave before she has run her full
course.'

There was something in the apathetic manner in which the old man pointed
out the future fate of his own child, that actually silenced Kornicker. He
knew not what to say. There was no grief to console; no anger to
deprecate; no wish to be fulfilled. He had however come to the prison with
his mind made up to do something, and he did not like to be thwarted in
his purpose. But before he had fairly determined what course was to be
pursued next, Rust interrupted the current of his ideas by saying, as he
pressed his hand upon his heart:

'You can do nothing for me. The disease is _here_; and the only physician
who can heal it is Death. Could you blot the past from my memory and leave
it one vast blank; could you gild the future with hopes which this heart
did not tell me were utterly hollow; then perhaps Michael Rust might
struggle on, like thousands of others, with some object in view, always to
be striven for, but always receding as he advanced, or turning to ashes in
his grasp. But it cannot be. I've played my part in the great drama of
life, and the curtain will soon fall.'

A spirit of callous indifference pervaded all that he said and did; and
making a gesture to Kornicker, forbidding all farther remark, he threw
himself on the bed, and drew the clothes about his head, as if determined
to shut out all sound.

Kornicker made one or two efforts to draw him again into conversation, but
the communicative mood was past; and finding that nothing farther was to
be done, he left him to his meditations.

From that time Kornicker, true to his maxim of deserting no one, was
constant in his visits and endeavors to comfort and assist him in
preparing for his trial. But never had man a more arduous task than he
found in this self-imposed duty; for the hidden transactions of Rust's
past life had become public, and had turned the full tide of popula