“That is that which I seek for, even to be rid of this heavy Burden; but get it off myself, I cannot; nor is there any man in our country that can take it off my shoulders—­”

So the Pilgrim had a burden too!  I turned back to the beginning and read how Christian, the hero, had been made aware of his perilous condition.

“In this plight therefore he went home, and refrained himself as long as he could, that his Wife and Children should not perceive his distress, but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased:  Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his Wife and Children; and thus he began to talk to them:  ‘Oh, my dear Wife,’ said he, ’and you the Children of my bowels, I, your dear Friend, am in myself undone by reason of a Burden that lieth hard upon me.’ ...  At this his Relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing toward night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed:  But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears.”

Surely this Pilgrim was strangely like myself!  And, though sorely beset, he had struggled on his way.

“Hast thou a Wife and Children?

“Yes, but I am so laden with this Burden that I cannot take that pleasure in them as formerly; methinks I am as if I had none.”

Tears filled my eyes and I laid down the book.  The bridge party was going home.  I could hear them shouting good-bys in the front hall and my wife’s shrill voice answering Good night!  From outside came the toot of horns and the whir of the motors as they drew up at the curb.  One by one the doors slammed, the glass rattled and they thundered off.  The noise got on my nerves and, taking my book, I crossed to the deserted drawing room, the scene of the night’s social carnage.  The sight was enough to sicken any man!  Eight tables covered with half-filled glasses; cards everywhere—­the floor littered with them; chairs pushed helter-skelter and one overturned; and from a dozen ash-receivers the slowly ascending columns of incense to the great God of Chance.  On the middle table lay a score card and pencil, a roll of bills, a pile of silver, and my wife’s vanity box, with its chain of pearls and diamonds.

Fiercely I resolved again to end it all—­at any cost.  I threw open one of the windows, sat myself down by a lamp in a corner, and found the place where I had been reading.  Christian had just encountered Charity.  In the midst of their discussion I heard my wife’s footsteps in the hall; the portieres rustled and she entered.

“Well!” she exclaimed.  “I thought you had gone to bed long ago.  I had good luck to-night.  I won eight hundred dollars!  How are you feeling?”