drink. We separated by mutual
consent, and I made her an allowance sufficient to supply all her lawful
wants. Alas! Alas! The sad end hurries on. She wrote to me for a
larger allowance; I knew what she wanted it for, and I refused. She
wrote again and I did not reply. Then she wrote to Mary with the same
object. Of course, I need hardly tell you that the children remained
with me. Poor dear Mary loved her mother dearly, and sent her all her
own pocket money. I found it out, and forbade it for the future. Two
more years passed by. From time to time I heard of my miserable wife;
she was sinking lower and lower. At last, in the twilight of an autumn
evening, as Mary was returning home alone, a wild-looking, ragged woman
crept towards her with a strange, undecided step: it was her mother.
She flung herself at her child's feet, imploring her, if she still had
any love for her, to find her the means of gratifying her insatiable
thirst. She must die, she said, if she refused her. Poor Mary, poor
Mary! Terror-stricken, heart-broken, she spoke words of love, of
entreaty, to that miserable creature; she urged her to break off her
sin; she pointed her to Jesus for strength; she told her that she dared
not supply her regularly with money, as she had promised me that she
would not, and it would do her no good. The wretched woman slunk away
without another word. Next day her body was found floating on the
river; she had destroyed herself. Poor, dear Mary never looked up after
that. She connected her mother's awful end with her own refusal to give
her money for the drink, though there could be no blame to her: and so
she faded away, my lovely child, and left me, ere another spring came
round, for the land of eternal summers. I was heart-sick, hopeless;
life seemed objectless; I gave way to despondency, and forgot my duty as
a man and a Christian. I felt that I was no proper guide nor companion
for poor John; so I sent him first to France, where he gained his skill
as an artist and musician; and since then he has, by his own desire,
been a traveller in distant lands. I let my house, and came over to
Hopeworth, to be out of the way of everything and everybody that could
remind me of the past. Yet, I could not forget. You noticed the vacant
space in my sitting-room, where a picture should have been; that empty
space reminded me of what might have been, had my wife, whose portrait
should have been there, been a diff