of property. I fell into the snare. She said she was
lonely; she sighed; she smiled, and I was lost.

Would that I had observed the elder Weller's injunction: "Bevare of
vidders;" would that I had never seen the Widow Roberts, or rather that
she had never seen me. Eight weeks after we first met we were married.
We had a great wedding in her own house, and all her friends were
present. I was in good practice with as many patients as I could attend
to; she had a good home and we settled down to be very happy.

For six weeks, only six weeks, I think we were so. We might have been
so for six weeks, six months, six years longer; but alas! I was a fool I
confided to her the secret of my first marriage, and separation, and she
confided the same secret to her brother, a well-to-do wagon-maker in
Newark. So far as Elizabeth was concerned, she said she didn't care;
so long as the separation was mutual and final, since so many years
had elapsed, and especially since I hadn't seen the woman for full six
years, and was not supposed to know whether she was alive or dead, why,
it was as good as a divorce; so reasoned Elizabeth, and it was precisely
my own reasoning, and the reasoning which had got me into numberless
difficulties, to say nothing of jails and prisons. But the brother had
his doubts about it, and came and talked to me on the subject several
times. We quarrelled about it. He threatened to have me arrested for
bigamy. I told him that if he took a step in that direction I would flog
him. Then he had me brought before a justice for threatening him, with a
view to having me put under bonds to keep the peace. I employed a lawyer
who managed my case so well that the justice concluded there was no
cause of action against me.

But this lawyer informed me that the brother was putting, even then,
another rod in pickle for me, and that I had better clear out. I took
his advice, I went to the widow's house, packed my trunk, gathered
together what money I could readily lay hands upon, and with about $300
in my pocket, I started for New York, staying that night at a hotel in
Courtland street.

The following morning I went over to Jersey City, hired a saddle-horse,
and rode to Newark. The precise object of my journey I do not think I
knew myself; but I must have had some vague idea of persuading Elizabeth
to leave Newark and join me in New York or elsewhere. I confess, too,
that I was more or less under the influence of liquor, and c