course, thought that my loss amounted to
no more than that of a mistress, and I soon began myself to doubt that
I had ever been married, so far away and visionary did my life of the
previous year seem. I continued my fast life for about six months, when
suddenly I was arrested upon the brink of destruction by--an angel. I
say this advisedly, for if ever there was an angel upon earth, it was
she who afterwards became my wife. She was the daughter of a doctor,
and it was her influence which drew me back from the dreary path of
profligacy and dissipation which I was then leading. I paid her great
attention, and we were, in fact, looked upon as good as engaged; but I
knew that I was still linked to that accursed woman, and could not ask
her to be my wife. At this second crisis of my life Fate again
intervened, for I received a letter from England, which informed me
that Rosanna Moore had been run over in the streets of London, and had
died in an hospital. The writer was a young doctor who had attended
her, and I wrote home to him, begging him to send out a certificate of
her death, so that I might be sure she was no more. He did so, and also
enclosed an account of the accident, which had appeared in a newspaper.
Then, indeed, I felt that I was free, and closing, as I thought, for
ever the darkest page of my life's history, I began to look forward to
the future. I married again, and my domestic life was a singularly
happy one. As the colony grew greater, with every year I became even
more wealthy than I had been, and was looked up to and respected by my
fellow-citizens. When my dear daughter Margaret was born, I felt that
my cup of happiness was full, but suddenly I received a disagreeable
reminder of the past. Rosanna's mother made her appearance one day--a
disreputable-looking creature, smelling of gin, in whom I could not
recognise the respectably-dressed woman who used to accompany Rosanna
to the theatre. She had spent long ago all the money I had given her,
and had sank lower and lower, until she now lived in a slum off Little
Bourke Street. I made enquiries after the child, and she told me it was
dead. Rosanna had not taken it to England with her, but had left it in
her mother's charge, and, no doubt, neglect and want of proper
nourishment was the cause of its death. There now seemed to be no link
to bind me to the past with the exception of the old hag, who knew
nothing about the marriage. I did not attempt to undeceiv