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STORIES OF
same time to the gentleman with whom she had been dancing.
" That ended my life. My Marie, my dream, was gone. I left the hall, went to a gambling place I knew, and in drink and gambling endea-voured to kill my grief. It lasted but a little while, this fearful dissipation, and in four months I was ruined.
" Then came my trial. The men who had played with me and won my money shunned me. My friends shut their doors against me, and my last sovereign was gone. I was utterly stranded, homeless and wretched. I had no desire to live, no energy to do anything. For nights I slept in the cabmen's coffee-houses ; there I was considered a nuisance, for I still drank heavily, spending all I could get in drink, and some friendly doorstep was my only bed, I pawned everything I possessed, and finally I spent three months in a workhouse under an assumed name.
" It was there the presence of Marie haunted me again. One day—Christmas Day—we were at dinner. Several rich people came to distribute among us gifts, such as tobacco, warm clothing, tea, and so on. I was weary and did not look at the visitors; suddenly a voice I knew too well said to me, 'My good man, which
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