The contrast of the state of happiness between the two brothers was
nearly resembled by that of the two cousins--the riches of young William
did not render him happy, nor did the poverty of young Henry doom him to
misery. His affectionate heart, as he had described in his letter to
Rebecca, loved _persons_ rather than _things_; and he would not have
exchanged the society of his father, nor the prospect of her hand and
heart, for all the wealth and splendour of which his cousin William was
the master.
He was right. Young William, though he viewed with contempt Henry's
inferior state, was far less happy than he. His marriage had been the
very counterpart of his father's; and having no child to create affection
to his home, his study was the only relief from that domestic incumbrance
called his wife; and though, by unremitting application there (joined to
the influence of the potent relations of the woman he hated), he at
length arrived at the summit of his ambitious desires, still they poorly
repaid him for the sacrifice he had made in early life of every tender
disposition.
Striding through a list of rapid advancements in the profession of the
law, at the age of thirty-eight he found himself raised to a preferment
such as rarely falls to the share of a man of his short experience--he
found himself invested with a judge's robe; and, gratified by the exalted
office, curbed more than ever that aversion which her want of charms or
sympathy had produced against the partner of his honours.
While William had thus been daily rising in fortune's favour, poor Agnes
had been daily sinking deeper and deeper under fortune's frowns: till at
last she became a midnight wanderer through the streets of London,
soliciting, or rudely demanding, money of the passing stranger.
Sometimes, hunted by the watch, she affrighted fled from street to
street, from portico to portico; and once, unknowing in her fear which
way she hurried, she found her trembling knees had sunk, and her wearied
head was reclined against the stately pillars that guarded William's
door.
At the sudden recollection where she was, a swell of passion, composed of
horror, of anger, of despair, and love, gave reanimated strength to her
failing limbs; and, regardless of her pursuer's steps, she ran to the
centre of the street, and, looking up to the windows of the mansion,
cried, "Ah! there he sleeps in quiet, in peace, in ease--he does not even
dream of me--he does not care how the cold pierces, or how the people
persecute me! He does not thank me for all the lavish love I have borne
him and his child! His heart is so hard, he does not even recollect that
it was he who brought me to ruin."
Had these miseries, common to the unhappy prostitute, been alone the
punishment of Agnes--had her crimes and sufferings ended in distress like
this, her story had not perhaps been selected for a public recital; for
it had been no other than the customary history of thousands of her sex.
But Agnes had a destiny yet more fatal. Unhappily, she was endowed with
a mind so sensibly alive to every joy, and every sorrow, to every mark of
kindness, every token of severity, so liable to excess in passion, that,
once perverted, there was no degree of error from which it would revolt.
Taught by the conversation of the dissolute poor, with whom she now
associated, or by her own observation on the worldly reward of elevated
villainy, she began to suspect "that dishonesty was only held a sin to
secure the property of the rich; and that, to take from those who did not
want, by the art of stealing, was less guilt, than to take from those who
did want, by the power of the law."
By false yet seducing opinions such as these, her reason estranged from
every moral and religious tie, her necessities urgent, she reluctantly
accepted the proposal to mix with a band of practised sharpers and
robbers, and became an accomplice in negotiating bills forged on a
country banker.
But though ingenious in arguments to excuse the deed before its
commission, in the act she had ever the dread of some incontrovertible
statement on the other side of the question. Intimidated by this
apprehension, she was the veriest bungler in her vile profession--and on
the alarm of being detected, while every one of her confederates escaped
and absconded, she alone was seized--was arrested for issuing notes they
had fabricated, and committed to the provincial jail, about fifty miles
from London, where the crime had been perpetrated, to take her trial
for--life or death.