In the happiest hour of his prosperous courtship he had known
himself unworthy of her, with no right, no claim, to so fair a prize,
except the right of pure and unselfish love. When the hour of trial came
to him he had said, "Behold the avenger!" and in that hour it seemed to
him that a lurking anticipation of future woe had been ever present with
him in the midst of his happiness,--it seemed so natural, go reasonable
that this treasure should be taken away from him. What had he done, that
he should go unpunished for all the errors and follies of his youth?
He looked back, and asked himself if he had been so vile a sinner as in
these hours of self-reproach he was inclined to esteem himself? Could his
life have been otherwise? Had he not been set in a groove, his young feet
planted in the crooked ways, before he knew that life's journey might be
travelled by a straighter road?
Alas, the answer given at the tribunal of conscience went against him!
Other men had come into this world amidst surroundings as bad, nay,
indeed, worse than the surroundings of his cradle. And of these men some
had emerged from their native mire spotless and pure as from newly-fallen
snow. The natural force of character which had saved these men had not
been given to him. His feet had been set in the crooked ways, and he had
travelled on, reckless, defiant, dimly conscious that the road was a bad
one, and that his garments were bespattered with more mud-stains than
would be agreeable to some travellers.
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