The simple plan of the future which I had mapped out for myself was suddenly shattered.
The Charlotte of to-night--heiress-at-law to an enormous fortune--ward in Chancery--claimant against the Crown--was a very different person from the simple maid "whom there were none"-- or only a doating simpleton in the person of the present writer--"to praise, and very few to love." The night before last I had hoped so much; to-night hope had forsaken me.

It seemed as if a Titan's hand had dug a great pit between me and the woman I loved--a pit as deep as the grave.
Philip Sheldon might have consented to give me his stepdaughter unpossessed of a sixpence; but would he give me his stepdaughter with a hundred thousand pounds for her fortune?
Alas! no; I know the Sheldonian intellect too well to be fooled by any hope so wild and baseless.

The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian inheritance.

But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight is over.

Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my shattered carcass.