He was a fat, good-humoured fellow, expensively dressed, and clean, being in all these points an exception among Ned’s acquaintances.  Madge found him, as a mere acquaintance, more amusing than intolerable; but as a possible husband, not to be thought of save with laughter and contempt.

Her refusal to consider him in the desired light, made Ned very wroth; and in revenge he went out, and, between drink and gaming, rid himself of every penny he possessed.  He thereupon begged that Madge would let him pawn some of her jewelry.  She refused to do so; until their landlady threatened ejection and suit.

After that, matters went from bad to worse.  With part of the money obtained upon what trinkets she gave him, Ned tried to repair his fortunes at the gaming-table; and that failing, he consoled himself in drunkenness.  More of her valuables were demanded; yielded up after terrible quarrels with Ned, and humiliating scenes with the landlady.  The visits to the play ceased, the maid was discharged, the hairdresser was no more brought into requisition.  Their fall to destitution was worthy of the harebrained design, the bungling conduct, of Ned; the childish inexperience, the blind confidence, of Madge.  ’Twas a fall as progressive as a series of prints by Hogarth.  The brother was perpetually in liquor; he no longer took Madge out with him.  Often he stayed away nights and days at a time.

She resolved to entrust nothing further to him, but to dispose of her ornaments herself, and to devote the proceeds to necessities alone, as he had wasted them in drink and gaming.  When she acted upon this resolution, he behaved like a madman.  Fearful quarrels ensued.  He blamed her for defeating his plans, she upbraided him for alluring her to London.  Recriminations and threats filled the hours when he was with her; loneliness and despondency occupied the periods of his absence.  Finally, while she slept, he robbed her of money she had got upon a bracelet; then of some of the jewelry itself.  She dared no longer sleep soundly, lest he might take away her last means of subsistence.  She was in daily and nightly terror of him.

She made up her mind, at last, to flee to some other part of the town, and hide from him; that her few resources left might be devoted to herself alone, and thus postpone the day of destruction to the furthest possible time.  After her last jewel, she might dispose of her dresses.  It was on a moonlight night in spring that she came to this determination; and, as Ned had gone out in a mood apparently presaging a long absence, she set about packing her clothes into her trunks, so as to take them with her when she left by hackney-coach at early daylight to seek new lodgings.

Suddenly she heard the door below slam with a familiar violence, and a well-known heavy tread ascend the stairs.  There was no time to conceal what she was at, ere Ned flung open the door, and stumbled in.  He stared in amazement at her trunks and dresses.