her at her own house, but
when her father learned that the young man who had been calling upon her
was a bookmaker he told him he could not associate with his daughter.

But the girl was now deeply in love with Ashton, and apparently he with
her. He begged her to marry him. They knew that to this, partly from
prejudice and partly owing to his position in the bank, her father would
object. Accordingly they agreed that in August, when the racing moved to
Saratoga, they would run away and get married at that place. Their plan
was that Ashton would leave for Saratoga with the other racing men, and
that she would join him the next day.

They had arranged to be married by a magistrate, and Ashton had shown
her a letter from one at Saratoga who consented to perform the ceremony.
He had given her an engagement ring and two thousand dollars, which he
asked her to keep for him, lest tempted at the track he should lose it.

But she assured Ford it was not such material things as a letter, a
ring, or gift of money that had led her to trust Ashton. His fear of
losing her, his complete subjection to her wishes, his happiness in her
presence, all seemed to prove that to make her happy was his one wish,
and that he could do anything to make her unhappy appeared impossible.

They were married the morning she arrived at Saratoga; and the same day
departed for Niagara Falls and Quebec. The honeymoon lasted ten days.
They were ten days of complete happiness. No one, so the girl declared,
could have been more kind, more unselfishly considerate than her
husband. They returned to Saratoga and engaged a suite of rooms at one
of the big hotels. Ashton was not satisfied with the rooms shown him,
and leaving her upstairs returned to the office floor to ask for others.

Since that moment his wife had never seen him nor heard from him.

On the day of her marriage young Mrs. Ashton had written to her father,
asking him to give her his good wishes and pardon. He refused both. As
she had feared, he did not consider that for a bank clerk a gambler made
a desirable son-in-law; and the letters he wrote his daughter were
so bitter that in reply she informed him he had forced her to choose
between her family and her husband, and that she chose her husband.
In consequence, when she found herself deserted she felt she could not
return to her people. She remained in Saratoga. There she moved into
cheap lodgings, and in order that the two thousand dollars