misled had already realized her folly, and left him with her
reproaches; the associates of his reckless life, who had used and
abused him, had found him no longer of service, or even amusement,
and clearly there was nothing left to do but to hand him over to
the state, and we took him to the nearest penitential asylum.
Conscious of the Samaritan deed, we went back to our respective
wives, and told his story. It is only just to say that these
sympathetic creatures were more interested in the philanthropy of
their respective husbands than in its miserable object. "It was
good and kind in you, dear," said loving Mrs. Maston to her spouse,
as returning home that night he flung his coat on a chair with an
air of fatigued righteousness; "it was like your kind heart to care
for that beast; but after he left that good wife of his--that
perfect saint--to take up with that awful woman, I think I'd have
left him to die in the ditch. Only to think of it, dear, a woman
that you wouldn't speak to!" Here Mr. Maston coughed slightly,
colored a little, mumbled something about "women not understanding
some things," "that men were men," etc., and then went comfortably
to sleep, leaving the outcast, happily oblivious of all things, and
especially this criticism, locked up in Hangtown Jail.

For the next twelve hours he lay there, apathetic and half-
conscious. Recovering from this after a while, he became furious,
vengeful, and unmanageable, filling the cell and corridor with
maledictions of friend and enemy; and again sullen, morose, and
watchful. Then he refused food, and did not sleep, pacing his
limits with the incessant, feverish tread of a caged tiger. Two
physicians, diagnosing his case from the scant facts, pronounced
him insane, and he was accordingly transported to Sacramento. But
on the way thither he managed to elude the vigilance of his guards,