However, with an Epicurean-like
philosophy, they enjoyed themselves on what little they had, and then
came to Melbourne, where they stayed at a second-rate hotel. Musette, I
may tell you, had one special vice, a common one--drink. She loved
champagne, and drank a good deal of it. Consequently, on arriving at
Melbourne, and finding that a new generation had arisen, which knew not
Joseph--I mean Musette--she drowned her sorrows in the flowing bowl,
and went out after a quarrel with Mr. Whyte, to view Melbourne by
night--a familiar scene to her, no doubt. What took her to Little Bourke
Street I don't know. Perhaps she got lost--perhaps it had been a
favourite walk of hers in the old days; at all events she was found
dead drunk in that unsavoury locality, by Sal Rawlins. I know this is
so, because Sal told me so herself. Sal acted the part of the good
Samaritan--took her to the squalid den she called home, and there
Rosanna Moore fell dangerously ill. Whyte, who had missed her, found
out where she was, and that she
was too ill to be removed. I presume he was rather glad to get rid of
such an encumbrance, so he went back to his lodgings at St. Kilda,
which, judging from the landlady's story, he must have occupied for
some time, while Rosanna Moore was drinking herself to death in a quiet
hotel Still he does not break off his connection with the dying woman;
but one night is murdered in a hansom cab, and that same night Rosanna
Moore dies.
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