Disgusted with the manner in which I had been treated, I
plunged into a whirl of dissipation, trying to drown the memory of my
married life. My friends, of course, thought that my loss amounted to
no more than that of a mistress, and I soon began myself to doubt that
I had ever been married, so far away and visionary did my life of the
previous year seem. I continued my fast life for about six months, when
suddenly I was arrested upon the brink of destruction by--an angel. I
say this advisedly, for if ever there was an angel upon earth, it was
she who afterwards became my wife. She was the daughter of a doctor,
and it was her influence which drew me back from the dreary path of
profligacy and dissipation which I was then leading. I paid her great
attention, and we were, in fact, looked upon as good as engaged; but I
knew that I was still linked to that accursed woman, and could not ask
her to be my wife. At this second crisis of my life Fate again
intervened, for I received a letter from England, which informed me
that Rosanna Moore had been run over in the streets of London, and had
died in an hospital. The writer was a young doctor who had attended
her, and I wrote home to him, begging him to send out a certificate of
her death, so that I might be sure she was no more. He did so, and also
enclosed an account of the accident, which had appeared in a newspaper.
Then, indeed, I felt that I was free, and closing, as I thought, for
ever the darkest page of my life's history, I began to look forward to
the future.
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