“I returned and shut myself up in the mansion, bewildered and stupefied.  I was now the possessor of immense wealth.  But I was unhappy.  I knew not what to do to enjoy life.  Gradually the pestilence abated and disappeared, and by degrees the gloom that oppressed me subsided.  At the end of a few months, I was informed by my young Virginian friend that Wold had entirely recovered.  I likewise received a letter from Mrs. Arras, stating that Judge ____ had sought out Laura, (who had been enticed to an obscure part of the city,) and, as her misfortune had been kept a profound secret among the few, he forgave the offence, and once more extended to her a father’s love and a father’s protection.  I need not say that a blissful thrill bounded through my veins.  Wold was living, and Laura not irrecoverably lost.  Yet I did not then deem it possible that I could, under such circumstances, ever desire to possess the once adored, but since truly fallen, Laura.  But I experienced a sweet gratification to be thus informed of the prospect of her being reinstated in society.  My love was not yet wholly extinguished!

“When it was generally known that I possessed great riches, a crowd of flatterers and sycophants hovered around me.  I was a distinguished guest at the mansions of the fashionable and great, and had in turn many brilliant parties at my residence.  But among the tinsel and glitter of the gay world I sought in vain for peace and happiness.  Many beautiful and bewitching belles lavished their sweetest smiles upon me, but they could not re-ignite the smothered flame in my bosom.  Wine could only exhilarate for a moment, to be succeeded by a gnawing nausea.  Cards could only excite while I lost, to be succeeded by irritability and disgust.

“Thus my time was spent for twelve months, when I suddenly conceived the resolution to seek a union with the ill-fated Laura, notwithstanding all the obloquy the world might attach to the act.  I still loved her in spite of myself.  I could not live in peace without her, and I determined without delay to offer her my hand, heart, and fortune.  I set out for Boston, and on my arrival instantly proceeded to the residence of Judge ____.  Again my evil star was in the ascendant.  Desolation and death presided in Judge ____’s family.  The ominous badge of mourning greeted me at the threshold; Laura’s mother had just been consigned, broken-hearted, to the cold grave.  The venerable Judge bowed his hoary head to the blows that Providence inflicted.  He could not speak to me.  His reply to my offer in relation to his child was only a flood of tears.  He then retreated into his library and locked the door.  An aged domestic told me all.  Laura had abandoned her parental roof, and voluntarily entered one of those sinks of pollution that so much degrade human nature!  I stood upon an awful abyss.  The whirlpools of deceit, ingratitude, indifference, and calumny, howled around me, and the dark floods of sensual corruption roared below.  Turn whithersoever I might (alas, I thought not of heaven!) gloom, discord, and misery seemed to be my portion.