She
never held up her head again. Her wicked love turned to hatred and
loathing; the very first opportunity she left him, and, like a
distracted creature, made her way home.
"Walls made no effort to follow her--he thought she had gone off in a
fit of remorse and misery and drowned herself. He was glad to be rid of
her, and he left France at once, and wandered away over the world.
"Mary Dane came home with her child--home to die. On her death-bed she
told me the story of my husband's death, and from the hour I heard it,
Reason tottered on her throne. I have never been sane since my misery
drove me mad.
"Mary Dane died, and I buried her. The child went to the work-house--I
would not have touched it with a pair of tongs--and there it, too, died
of lack and care. And so the miserable story of sin and shame ended, as
all such stories must end.
"But the misery did not end here. You were left me, but I seemed to care
for you no longer. I sat down, a stunned and senseless thing, and let
all belonging to me go to rack and ruin. The farm went, the furniture
went, the homestead went--I was left a widowed, penniless, half-crazed
wretch.
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