CHAPTER IV.

SAILS FOR AMERICA, AND MEETS A KINDLY WELCOME.


Ruth was now suffering keenly. She loved her husband with such an
intense passion that even his folly did not cool its ardor, and
when others denounced him in the harshest terms she spoke only in
tenderness. And when many of her friends went so far as to advise
her to leave him, and so save to herself and children some remnant
of her fortune, she indignantly protested against their giving her
any such advice. She said she would remain faithful to her
marriage vow, no matter what suffering and obloquy it might
involve. Not but her idol had fallen very low. She had been so
proud of him, proud of his manly bearing, his strength of
character. Proud of his ability, which, to her, seemed to enter
the regions of genius. "Oh!" she said, as she mourned over her
blasted hopes, her vanished dream of bliss, "I never expected
this." She suffered as only such a sensitive, noble, cultured
woman could suffer, and suffered the more because she would give
voice to no complaint. The heart was at high pressure, and the
valve was close shut.

But she did not give up her endeavors to save him. She tried by
gentle endearing tenderness to win him from destruction; and when
she found this did not avail she passionately appealed to him to
stop ere he had involved them all in ruin.

"Oh Richard!" she would say, "Why do you drink? You know your
business is now nearly ruined. Your friends have nearly all