UNHAPPY DOMESTIC EXPERIENCES. 59 



It is a sad story, and should be quickly told. Re- 

 monstrance became useless ; unhappiness increased ; till 

 one day the crisis came. John, coming home from work 

 at an unexpected hour, found a man where no man should 

 be. That was the end. She left the house alone, 

 abandoning her husband and children. Even then, his 

 old affection reasserted itself and he made overtures for 

 her return, offering to let " the dead past bury its dead," 

 if she would only promise even yet to amend. All was 

 useless, and they parted for ever. 



The house was broken up. She took with her her own 

 boy, and John retained the daughters. Had he been a 

 richer man, he would have sought and obtained divorce. 

 Being very poor, he had to remain united in name and 

 law with a worthless woman. She joined her fortunes 

 with those of her new fancy, to be discarded in time ; and, 

 after passing through various lower experiences, ended in 

 becoming a wanderer over the country, selling small 

 trinkets and at last begging her bread. She tried to 

 annoy her husband when she could, endeavouring on one 

 occasion to father a child upon him, and bringing him to 

 court, of course in vain. She used also to visit him, to 

 extort money, when she knew where he lived. At all 

 times, John treated her with kindness, and without recrimi- 

 tion or reference to the past. Before she died, she was 

 subject to St. Vitus' dance, and became a poor miserable 

 creature, draining the last drops of bitterness from the cup 

 she had mingled for herself, and dying in the west of 

 Aberdeenshire, unknown to her husband, a nameless object, 

 more than twenty years after she had ruthlessly wrecked 

 her home. 



