We shall
return to him shortly. In the meantime, I need only tell you that Andrew
and Michael never again met--never again communicated, even by writing.
To all intents and purposes they were dead to each other, from those
early days to the present time.
"You can now estimate what Andrew's position was when he left his
profession and returned to England. Possessed of a fortune, h e was
alone in the world; his future destroyed at the fair outset of life;
his mother and brother estranged from him; his sister lately married,
with interests and hopes in which he had no share. Men of firmer mental
caliber might have found refuge from such a situation as this in an
absorbing intellectual pursuit. He was not capable of the effort; all
the strength of his character lay in the affections he had wasted. His
place in the world was that quiet place at home, with wife and children
to make his life happy, which he had lost forever. To look back was more
than he dare. To look forward was more than he could. In sheer despair,
he let his own impetuous youth drive him on; and cast himself into the
lowest dissipations of a London life.
"A woman's falsehood had driven him to his ruin.
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