“But, sir, I cannot pay it now, and he threatens harsh measures.”

“I have entire confidence in his judgment, sir, and am willing to leave all such matters to his discretion.”

“I am in trouble, sir, and in poverty beside, for the demands on me are greater than I can meet.”

“Your own fault, I suppose,” retorted the landlord, with a sneer.  “That, any one might know, who took half a glance at you.”

This remark caused the blood to mount suddenly to the face of the man.

“Let me be judged by what I am, not by what I have been,” was the meek reply, after the troubled pause of a few moments.  Then in a more decided tone of voice, he said:—­

“Will you not interfere?”

“Will I? No! I never interfere with my agent.  He gives me entire satisfaction, and while he does so, I shall not interfere.”  And Mr. Moneylove smiled with self-satisfaction at the idea of his careful and thrifty agent, and his own worldly policy.

The petitioner slowly left the house—­murmuring to himself:  “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” It was more than an hour before he could compose his mind sufficiently to be able to meet his wife with a countenance that was not too deeply shadowed with care.

She was ill, and besides, under the pressure of many causes, was suffering from a nervous lowness of spirits.  Against this depression, her husband saw that she was striving with all the mental energy she possessed, but striving almost in vain.  To know that she even had cause for the exercise of such an internal power, was, to him, painful in the extreme; and he was bitter in his self-reproaches for being the cause of suffering to one he loved with a pure and fervent love.

Turning, at last, resolutely towards his dwelling, and striving with a strong effort to keep down the troubles that were sweeping in rough waves over his spirit; it was not long before he set his foot upon his own doorstone.

To give force to this scene, and to throw around what follows its true interest, it will be necessary to go back and sketch some things in the history of the individual here introduced.

His name was Theodore Wilmer.  In earlier years, he was clerk in the large mercantile house of Rensselaer, Wykoff & Co., in New York.  Being a young man of intelligence, good address, and good principles, he was much esteemed, and valued by his employers, who took some pains to introduce him into society.  In this way he was brought into contact with some of the first families in New York, and, in this way, he became acquainted with Constance Jackson, the daughter of a wealthy merchant.  Constance was truly a lovely girl, and one for whom Theodore soon began to entertain feelings akin to love.