“So it has come at last—ruin, final, irretrievable ruin—every thing gone—the very house I’m in mortgaged. Confusion! But I’ll not give up yet—no, not yet! I’ll see Browne to-night—what if we should fail? But that is impossible. Browne has been too long engaged in getting his living from the dear public to let it scrutinize very closely the process by which the needful is obtained. If I thought I could win any thing at play—but I have had such an infernal run of ill luck lately that there is no chance in that quarter. Well—well! There appears to be no alternative—and when it is once done, then ho! for England!”

Thus soliloquized Gustavus Tremaine, as he sat at a late hour in the morning sipping his coffee in his room, for his wife and he had long ceased to take their meals together. Separate rooms and separate tables had served to complete the estrangement which caprice and ill temper had begun, and they now exhibited that pitiable spectacle of a house divided against itself. And what is more pitiable than to see those who should mutually encourage and support each other, who should bear one another’s burdens, and in the spirit of blessed charity endure all things, and hope all things—what is more pitiable than to see them unkind, self-willed, bandying bitter sarcasms and rude reproaches?

Oh, that the duties, the responsibilities, the self-sacrifices of wedded life were better understood, their sacred character more fully appreciated, how would each home become a temple of love, each fireside an altar, on which was daily laid an offering of all the amenities, all the sweet charities of social life. How would the child who, in his early home, had heard none save kind words, had seen none other than heart-warm deeds, who had been trained to habits of submission, and taught to yield the gratification of his own wishes for the good or the pleasure of others, taught to do this even as a child may be taught, in the meek spirit of the gospel—how would such an one grow up a crown of glory to the hoary hairs of his parents, and a blessing to society. But, alas! the spirit of insubordination is rife in the world. The child spurns the yoke of domestic discipline, sets at naught the counsels of his father, and hearkens not to the voice of his mother—and the man disregards the voice of conscience, sets the laws of his country at defiance, and becomes an outcast and a felon!

It was a cold winter evening, and the heavy clouds were looming up in broad masses over the troubled sky, while the wind howled through every cranny, and sent the snow-mist, which began rapidly to descend, into the faces of the stray pedestrians who were either hardy enough to venture abroad in search of pleasure, or wretched enough to be obliged from dire necessity to leave their homes. Mr. Tremaine was among the few who were braving the fury of the storm. He had left his elegant but cheerless mansion in the upper part of the city, and sped onward, regardless alike of wind and snow, to the place of his destination.

It was the haunt of vice, but in no dark alley nor out-of-the-way nook did it seek to hide itself from public contempt. No—it reared its front unblushingly in the public thoroughfare—within sound of the church-going bell—it was fitted up with every luxury; silver and gold, polished marble, and costly hangings, in lavish profusion, adorned the place which fostered every malignant and evil passion, and made human beings, endowed with immortal souls, ripe for deeds of desperation. The man who robbed his employer, the defaulter, the forger, the destroyer of female virtue, the murderer, the suicide, each and all of these had been within its walls—each and all of these had taken their first lessons in iniquity in that place, so truly and emphatically called a hell. And it was to this place of pollution that Tremaine was hastening. Here he had staked, and lost, and cursed his ill luck; yet, with the desperate infatuation of a confirmed gamester, he had staked again and again, until all was gone. On entering he looked round with a furtive and eager glance, and, evidently disappointed, sauntered toward a roulette table round which a crowd was standing.

“Do you play to-night?” The speaker was a tall, slender young man, scarcely past his minority, but with a wan, sickly countenance, and the premature stoop of old age. “Do you play to-night?” he repeated.

“I—I believe not,” answered Tremaine, again glancing round the room.

“You are a foolish fellow; the fickle goddess may even now be turning the wheel in your favor. Come,” he continued, laughing, “if you have not been at your banker’s to-day, I have, and can accommodate you with a few hundreds;” and he took a roll of bills from his pocket, and handed them to Tremaine.

“But when shall I return this, Gladsden?”

“Oh, a fortnight hence will be time enough.”

Tremaine turned to the table and staked the money—he won; staked the whole amount—won again; the third time. “You had better stop now,” whispered a voice in his ear. He turned, and saw the person for whom, a short time before, he had been looking so eagerly; but he was elated with success, and paid no heed to the speaker. The fourth—the fifth time, he won. Such a run of luck was most extraordinary; he trembled with excitement, and now determined that he would try but once more, and, if successful, he might yet retrieve the past.

“Are you mad, Tremaine?—you surely will not risk all?” again whispered the voice.

“All or nothing. I am fortune’s chief favorite to-night. All or nothing,” repeated the gamester, as if communing with himself, “all or nothing!”

The bystanders looked on earnestly; for a few moments there was a dead silence—then Tremaine’s face became livid, his brow contracted, and his lips compressed. He had risked all; he had gained—nothing!

“What a fool you have made of yourself!” once more whispered the ominous voice.

“Not a word, Browne; perhaps it needed this to make me wholly yours,” replied Tremaine, as he walked through the crowd, which opened to let him and his companion pass. When in the street, the two walked on for a time in moody silence, which was first broken by Browne.

“Well, Tremaine, that last was a bad stake of yours, and may cost one of us the halter.”

“Why, I thought you told me there would be no blood spilt?”

“Well, blood is rather ugly looking, I must confess; but if the man should wake?”

“Did you not say you would have him well drugged?”

“I did, but by the slightest possible chance, I find it cannot be done!”

“How so?”

“You know it was expected that he would sail in the packet from this port, but I find he has determined on going by the steamer, and will start to-morrow morning by the Long Island railroad; so that we must do it now or never.”

“Now or never be it, then. I am a ruined man, and ripe for mischief.”

Again the two walked on in silence, until they reached a fine looking house in the vicinity of the Battery. Here Browne applied his key to the night latch, and in a few moments he and Tremaine had entered one of the upper rooms and locked the door.

“Where does he sleep?” abruptly inquired Tremaine.

“In the opposite room.”

“And you are sure that you can effect an entrance without arousing any of the boarders?”

“Sure! I wish I was as sure that he would not wake,” and Browne smiled contemptuously. “But you are not growing faint-hearted, eh, Tremaine? Come, here is something will give you courage, man;” and, taking a bottle from a side closet, he placed it on the table before them, and continued—“fifty thousand dollars! I saw him count it over this afternoon. What fools some men are! Because I flattered him, and pretended to take an interest in his love affair, he opened his whole heart, and, what was of far more value, his purse, and displayed its contents before me. But it grows late, and we must to business. Remember, when I have secured the money, you are to take it and make your escape out of the house, while I shall return quietly to bed to lull suspicion, and to-morrow evening will meet you where we met to-night. Now do you hold this dark lantern while I open the lock. That will do—put it in my room again—so—all right; come in a little farther,” continued he, in a low whisper, “we must be cautious—the money is under his pillow.”

Stealthily approaching the bed of the unconscious sleeper, Browne put his hand softly under the pillow and drew forth a wallet. Thus far they were successful, but in groping their way out of the room, Browne stumbled and fell; the noise awoke the sleeping man, and the cries of “Help!—robbers!—help!” rang through the house. In one moment Browne was on his feet, in another in his room, where the money was given to Tremaine, and in the noise and confusion of hastily opening and shutting doors, the latter escaped.

It is unnecessary to detail the causes which led to the suspicion and arrest of Browne, and the implication of Tremaine. Suffice it that on the following evening, when entering the place in which he had appointed to meet his accomplice and divide the booty, Tremaine was taken into custody, and the money found in his possession.

Sophia was dressing for the opera. It was the first night on which she had laid aside the mourning worn for the loss of her parents, and, determined on appearing in a style of almost regal magnificence, she had placed a circlet of jewels on her brow, and a diamond bracelet was seen flashing on her arm amid the rich lace of a demi-sleeve as she reached out her hand to receive a note brought in by the servant. On opening it her agitation was extreme, and, hastily dismissing her attendants, she read over word by word the news of her husband’s crime, and subsequent imprisonment.

And now was she tortured by conflicting emotions. She had never believed that her husband’s affairs were in the ruinous state in which he had represented them to be—but she could no longer doubt. Crime had been committed—disgrace had fallen upon them—and then came the thought, “Have not I helped to goad him on to ruin?” and pity for him brought a momentary forgetfulness of self—the woman was not wholly dead within her!

The next day the hateful news was bruited abroad that Tremaine, the dashing Tremaine, was imprisoned for robbery! His fashionable friends wisely shook their heads, and raised their hands, and uttered sundry exclamations. But they stood aloof—not one offered to go forward as bail for the unfortunate man. Not one of Mrs. Tremaine’s gay lady visiters went to speak a word to the humbled woman as she sat writhing under her disgrace. But we forget—there was one! Fanny Dunning, like a ministering angel, strove to soothe and comfort her, promised that her husband would do his utmost to aid Mr. Tremaine, and, when the mortgage on the house was foreclosed, took the weeping Sophia to her own home and was to her as a sister.

——