“The effect of all this upon Mrs. Hammond has been painful in the extreme.  We can only dimly imagine the terrible suffering through which she has passed.  Her present aberration was first visible after a long period of sleeplessness, occasioned by distress of mind.  During the whole of two weeks, I am told, she did not close her eyes; the most of that time walking the floor of her chamber, and weeping.  Powerful anodynes, frequently repeated, at length brought relief.  But, when she awoke from a prolonged period of unconsciousness, the brightness of her reason was gone.”  Since then, she has never been clearly conscious of what was passing around her, and well for her, I have sometimes thought it was, for even obscurity of intellect is a blessing in her case.  Ah, me!  I always get the heart-ache, when I think of her.”  “Did not this event startle the young man from his fatal dream, if I may so call his mad infatuation?” I asked.

“No.  He loved his mother, and was deeply afflicted by the calamity; but it seemed as if he could not stop.  Some terrible necessity appeared to be impelling him onward.  If he formed good resolutions—­and I doubt not that he did—­they were blown away like threads of gossamer, the moment he came within the sphere of old associations.  His way to the mill was by the ’Sickle and Sheaf’; and it was not easy for him to pass there without being drawn into the bar, either by his own desire for drink, or through the invitation of some pleasant companion, who was lounging in front of the tavern.”

“There may have been something even more impelling than his love of drink,” said I.

“What?”

I related, briefly, the occurrences of the preceding night.

“I feared—­nay, I was certain—­that he was in the toils of this man!  And yet your confirmation of the fact startles and confounds me,” said he, moving about his office in a disturbed manner.  “If my mind has questioned and doubted in regard to young Hammond, it questions and doubts no longer.  The word ‘mystery’ is not now written over the door of his habitation.  Great Father! and is it thus that our young men are led into temptation?  Thus that their ruin is premeditated, secured?  Thus that the fowler is permitted to spread his net in the open day, and the destroyer licensed to work ruin in darkness?  It is awful to contemplate!” The man was strongly excited.

“Thus it is,” he continued; “and we who see the whole extent, origin, and downward rushing force of a widely sweeping desolation, lift our voices of warning almost in vain.  Men who have everything at stake—­sons to be corrupted, and daughters to become the wives of young men exposed to corrupting influences—­ stand aloof, questioning and doubting as to the expediency of protecting the innocent from the wolfish designs of bad men; who, to compass their own selfish ends, would destroy them body and soul.  We are called fanatics, ultraists, designing, and all that, because we ask our law-makers