own fireside, and they were blest in the society of each other. But
it was not long until company again spread its seductive snares
around him. Again he listened to the words--"_We'll have
another_"--again he yielded to their temptations, and again the
_force of habit_ made him its slave. Night followed night, and he
was irritable and unhappy, unless in the midst of his boon
companions. Poor Mary felt the bitterness and anguish of a deserted
wife; but she upbraided him not--she spoke not of her sorrows.
Health forsook her cheeks, and gladness had fled from her spirit; yet
as she nightly sat hour after hour waiting his return, as he entered,
she welcomed him with a smile, which not unfrequently was met with an
imprecation or a frown. They had been married about two years. Mary
was a mother, and oft at midnight she would sit weeping over the
cradle of her child, mourning in secret for its thoughtless father.
It was her birthday, her father had come to London to visit them; she
had not told him of her sorrows, and she had invited a few friends to
dine with them. They had assembled; but Adam was still absent. He
had been unkind to her; but this was an unkindness she did not expect
from him. They were yet awaiting, when a police-officer entered.
His errand was soon told. Adam Brown had become a gambler, as well
as a drunkard--he had been guilty of fraud and embezzlement--his
guilt had been discovered, and the police were in quest of him. Mr
Douglas wrung his hands and groaned. Mary bore the dreadful blow
with more than human fortitude. She uttered no scream--she shed no
tears; for a moment she sat motionless--speechless. It was the
dumbness of agony. With her child at her breast, and, in the midst
of her guests, she flung herself at her father's feet. "Father!" she
exclaimed, "for my sake!--for my helpless child's sake--save! oh,
save my poor husband!"
"For your sake, what I can do I will do, dearest," groaned the old
man.
A coach was ordered to the door, and the miserable wife and her
father hastened to the office of her husband's employer.
When Adam Brown received intelligence that his guilt was discovered
from a companion, he was carousing with others in a low
gambling-house. Horror seized him, and he hurried from the room, but
returned in a few minutes. "_We'll have another!_" he exclaimed, in
a tone of frenzy--and another was brought. He half filled a
glass--he raised it to his lips--he dashed into it a deadly poison,
and, ere they could stay his hand, the fatal draught was swallowed.
He had purchased a quantity of arsenic when he rushed from the house.
His fellow-gamblers were thronging around him, when his injured wife
and her grey-headed father entered the room. "Away, tormentors!" he
exclaimed, as his glazed eyes fell upon them, and he dashed his hand
before his face.
"My husband! my dear husband!" cried Mary, flinging her arms around
his neck. "Look on me, speak to me!"
He gazed on her face--he grasped her hand. "Mary, my injured Mary!"
he exclaimed convulsively, "can _you_ forgive me--_you--you_? O God;
I was once innocent! Forgive me, dearest!--for our child's sake,
curse not its guilty father!"
"Husband!--Adam!" she cried, wringing his hand--"come with me, love,
come--leave this horrid place--you have nothing to fear--your debt is
paid."
"Paid!" he exclaimed, wildly--"Ha! ha!--Paid!" These were his last
words--convulsions came upon him, the film of death passed over his
eyes, and his troubled spirit fled.
She clung round his neck--she yet cried "Speak to me!"--she refused
to believe that he was dead, and her reason seemed to have fled with
his spirit.
She was taken from his body and conveyed home. The agony of grief
subsided into a stupor approaching imbecility. She was unconscious
of all around; and, within three weeks from the death of her husband,
the broken spirit of Mary Douglas found rest, and her father returned
in sorrow with her helpless orphan to Teviotdale.