CHAPTER XVI.
THE END OF MARY'S EXPEDITION.
Let us hurry over what is to follow.

I who knew her so well can have no pleasure in dwelling over her misery and degradation.

And he who reads these pages will, I hope, have little sympathy with the minor details of the life of such a man as George Hawker.
Some may think that she has been punished enough already, for leaving her quiet happy home to go away with such a man.

"She must have learnt already," such would say, "that he cares nothing for her.

Let her leave her money behind, and go back to her father to make such amends as she may for the misery she has caused him." Alas, my dear madam, who would rejoice in such a termination of her troubles more than myself?
But it is not for me to mete out degrees of punishment.