“For three months, more or less, we got on nicely—­except in one particular.  My husband never stirred in the matter of starting in business for himself.

“He was once or twice cross with me when I said it seemed a pity to be spending the money in the bank (which might be afterward wanted) instead of earning more in business.  Good Mr. Bapchild, happening about this time to be in London, staid over Sunday, and came to dine with us between the services.  He had tried to make my peace with my relations—­but he had not succeeded.  At my request he spoke to my husband about the necessity of exerting himself.  My husband took it ill.  I then saw him seriously out of temper for the first time.  Good Mr. Bapchild said no more.  He appeared to be alarmed at what had happened, and he took his leave early.

“Shortly afterward my husband went out.  I got tea ready for him—­but he never came back.  I got supper ready for him—­but he never came back.  It was past twelve at night before I saw him again.  I was very much startled by the state he came home in.  He didn’t speak like himself, or look like himself:  he didn’t seem to know me—­wandered in his mind, and fell all in a lump like on our bed.  I ran out and fetched the doctor to him.

“The doctor pulled him up to the light, and looked at him; smelled his breath, and dropped him down again on the bed; turned about, and stared at me.  ‘What’s the matter, Sir?’ I says.  ’Do you mean to tell me you don’t know?’ says the doctor.  ‘No, Sir,’ says I.  ’Why what sort of a woman are you,’ says he, ‘not to know a drunken man when you see him!’ With that he went away, and left me standing by the bedside, all in a tremble from head to foot.

“This was how I first found out that I was the wife of a drunken man.”

4.

“I have omitted to say any thing about my husband’s family.

“While we were keeping company together he told me he was an orphan—­with an uncle and aunt in Canada, and an only brother settled in Scotland.  Before we were married he gave me a letter from this brother.  It was to say that he was sorry he was not able to come to England, and be present at my marriage, and to wish me joy and the rest of it.  Good Mr. Bapchild (to whom, in my distress, I wrote word privately of what had happened) wrote back in return, telling me to wait a little, and see whether my husband did it again.

“I had not long to wait.  He was in liquor again the next day, and the next.  Hearing this, Mr. Bapchild instructed me to send him the letter from my husband’s brother.  He reminded me of some of the stories about my husband which I had refused to believe in the time before I was married; and he said it might be well to make inquiries.

“The end of the inquiries was this.  The brother, at that very time, was placed privately (by his own request) under a doctor’s care to get broken of habits of drinking.  The craving for strong liquor (the doctor wrote) was in the family.  They would be sober sometimes for months together, drinking nothing stronger than tea.  Then the fit would seize them; and they would drink, drink, drink, for days together, like the mad and miserable wretches that they were.