About one o’clock, sick and weary of such a comfortless home, he went out, glad of any change.  Ten steps from his own door, he was met by a constable who conveyed him to prison.

Several hours passed before his crushed feelings were aroused sufficiently to cause him even to think of any means of extrication.  When his mind did act, it was with clearness, vigor, and decision.  The walls of a jail had something too nearly like reality about them, to leave much of the false sentiment which had hitherto marred his prospects in life.  There was, too, something deeply humiliating in his condition of an imprisoned debtor.

“What shall I do?” he asked himself, towards the close of the day, with a strong resolution to discover the best course of action, and to pursue that course, unswayed by any extraneous influences.  The thought of his wife came across his mind.

“Shall I send her word where I am?”—­A pause of some moments succeeded this question.

“No,” he at length said, half aloud, while an expression of pain flitted over his countenance.  “It is of little consequence to her where I am or what I suffer.  She is, I believe, perfectly heartless.”

But Fenwick was mistaken in this.  She needed, as well as himself, some powerful shock to awaken her to true consciousness.  That shock proved to be the knowledge of her husband’s imprisonment for debt, which she learned early on the next morning, after the passage of an anxious and sleepless night, full of strange forebodings of approaching evil.  She repaired, instantly, to the prison, her heart melted down into true feeling.  The interview between herself and husband was full of tenderness, bringing out from each heart the mutual affections which had been sleeping there, alas! too long.

But one right course presented itself to the mind of either of them, and that was naturally approved by both, as the only proper one.  It was for Fenwick to come out of prison under the act of insolvency, and thus free himself from the trammels of past obligations, which could not possibly be met.

This was soon accomplished, the requisite security for his personal appearance to interrogatories being readily obtained.

“And now, Adelaide, what is to be done?” he asked of his wife, as he sat holding her hand in his, during the first hour of his release from imprisonment.  His own mind had already decided—­still he was anxious for her suggestion, if she had any to make.

“Can you still obtain that school you spoke of?” she asked with much interest in her tone.

“Yes.  The offer is still open.”

“Then take it, Charles, by all means.  One such lesson as we have had, is enough for a life time.  Satisfied am I, now, that we have not sought for happiness in the right paths.”