Stunned, terrified, bewildered by the frightful calamity which she believed had befallen her, she felt convinced that her husband had been entrapped and murdered for the sake of the money he had about him:  the wretched woman tottered back to her lodgings, and threw herself on the bed in wild despair.  What was to be done for food even for her boy?  Her husband had not only his pocket-book with him containing his larger money, but had taken her purse!  She was alone and penniless in a strange city!  The hungry wailings of her witless child towards evening at length aroused her from the stupor of despair into which she had fallen.  The miserable resource of pawning occurred to her:  she could at least, by pledging a part of her wardrobe, procure sustenance for her child till she could hear from her sister; and with trembling hands she began arranging a bundle of such things as she could best spare, when the landlady abruptly entered the room, with a peremptory demand—­as her husband was not returned, and did not appear likely to do so—­for a month’s rent in advance, that being the term the apartments were engaged for.  The tears, entreaties, expostulations of the miserable wife were of no avail.  Not one article, the woman declared, should leave her house till her claim was settled.  She affected to doubt, perhaps really did so, that Esther was married; and hinted coarsely at an enforcement of the laws against persons who had no visible means of subsistence.  In a paroxysm of despair, the unhappy woman rushed out of the house; and accompanied by her hungry child, again sought the counting-house of the Messrs. Roberts.  She was now as much too late as she had been too early in the morning:  the partners and clerks had gone, and she appears to have been treated with some rudeness by the porter, who was closing the premises when she arrived.  Possibly the wildness of her looks, and the incoherence of her speech and manner, produced an impression unfavorable to her.  Retracing her steps—­penniless, hungry, sick at heart—­she thought, as she afterwards declared, that she recognized my wife in one of the numerous ladies seated before the counters of a fashionable shop in one of the busiest thoroughfares.  She entered, and not till she approached close to the lady discovered her mistake.  She turned despairingly away; when a piece of rich lace, lying apparently unheeded on the counter, met her eye, and a dreadful suggestion crossed her fevered brain; here at least was the means of procuring food for her wailing child.  She glanced hastily and fearfully round.  No eye, she thought, observed her; and, horror of horrors! a moment afterwards she had concealed the lace beneath her shawl, and with tottering feet was hastily leaving the shop.  She had not taken half-a-dozen steps when a heavy hand was laid upon her shoulder, and a voice, as of a serpent hissing in her ear, commanded her to restore the lace she had stolen.  Transfixed with shame and terror, she stood rooted to the spot, and the lace fell on the floor.