“You cannot understand me, Madam; and it is well you cannot.  Blest with a fond husband, surrounded by every comfort, you have never been assailed by the horrible temptations to which misery has exposed me.  You have never known what it is to want food, raiment, shelter.  You have never seen the child within your arms perishing from hunger, and no relief to be obtained.  You have never felt the hearts of all hardened against you; have never heard the jeer or curse from every lip; nor endured the insult and the blow from every hand.  I have suffered all this.  I could resist the tempter now, I am strong in health,—­in mind.  But then—­Oh!  Madam, there are moments—­moments of darkness, which overshadow a whole existence—­in the lives of the poor houseless wretches who traverse the streets, when reason is well-nigh benighted; when the horrible promptings of despair can, alone, be listened to; and when vice itself assumes the aspect of virtue.  Pardon what I have said, Madam.  I do not desire to extenuate my guilt—­far less to defend it; but I would show you, and such as you—­who, happily, are exempted from trials like mine—­how much misery has to do with crime.  And I affirm to you, on my own conviction, that she who falls, because she has not strength granted her to struggle with affliction, may be reclaimed,—­may repent, and be forgiven,—­even as she, whose sins, ‘though many, were forgiven her’.

“It gladdens me to hear you talk thus, Joan,” said Wood, in a voice of much emotion, while his eyes filled with tears, “and more than repays me for all I have done for you.”

“If professions of repentance constitute a Magdalene, Mrs. Sheppard is one, no doubt,” observed Mrs. Wood, ironically; “but I used to think it required something more than mere words to prove that a person’s character was abused.”

“Very right, my love,” said Wood, “very sensibly remarked.  So it does.  Bu I can speak to that point.  Mrs. Sheppard’s conduct, from my own personal knowledge, has been unexceptionable for the last twelve years.  During that period she has been a model of propriety.”

“Oh! of course,” rejoined Mrs. Wood; “I can’t for an instant question such distinterested testimony.  Mrs. Sheppard, I’m sure, will say as much for you.  He’s a model of conjugal attachment and fidelity, a pattern to his family, and an example to his neighbours.  Ain’t he, Madam?’”

“He is, indeed,” replied the widow, fervently; “more—­much more than that.”

“He’s no such thing!” cried Mrs. Wood, furiously.  “He’s a base, deceitful, tyrannical, hoary-headed libertine—­that’s what he is.  But, I’ll expose him.  I’ll proclaim his misdoings to the world; and, then, we shall see where he’ll stand.  Marry, come up!  I’ll show him what an injured wife can do.  If all wives were of my mind and my spirit, husbands would soon be taught their own insignificance.  But a time will come (and that before long,) when our sex will assert its superiority; and, when we have got the upper hand, let ’em try to subdue us if they can.  But don’t suppose, Madam, that anything I say has reference to you.  I’m speaking of virtuous women—­of WIVES, Madam.  Mistresses neither deserve consideration nor commiseration.”