Her defiance of all propriety, the luxury
she indulged in, the enormous sums of
money she lavished,all announced that the
end could not be very distant: that she
must soon sink from the surface of the
whirlpool in which she had been engulfed
to the dark depths below, dragging with
her, her husband’s honor, and perhaps the
name and fortunes of his firm.
Her present surroundings hastened her
ruin. In London she was compelled to
pay some res] >ect to appearances.but in this
retreat, she was as it were, utterly alone.
A pistol shot in a house near, the melan
choly’ ending of an intrigue as silly as it
was disgraceful, only’ caused her to smile
and to long for “adventures.” The day’s
on which she was not to be seen going or
coming from London, she passed in abso
lute indolence, wrapped in a white dress
ing-gown, never occupying herself in the
least with the management of her house.
The servants robbed her, but she 'knew
nothing of it. Little by’ little she lost all
ambition, she descended to ner lormer
shop-girl level, and even below it. From
the respectable mercantile circle to which
her marriage had raised her, she fell to
the position of the women she saw about
her. She imitated them in her dress and
her manners, cut her hair short over her
forehead like a sky terrier, and for two
months flourished as a decided blonde,
greatly to Florence’s astonishment, who
looked as if he had changed his doll.
These freaks amused George, and it
was lie who -was the real master of the
house.
