They returned not again to England, but lived in France and Italy, alternately.

Alphingham, callous to every better and softer feeling, might have been happy, but not such was the fate of Annie.

Bitterly, ere she died, did she regret her folly and disobedience; remorse was sometimes busy within, though no actual guilt dimmed her career: she drowned the voice of conscience in the vortex of frivolity and fashion.
But the love she bore for Alphingham was the instrument of retribution, her husband neglected, despised, and frequently deserted her.

Let no woman unite herself with sin, in the vain hope of transforming it to virtue.

Such thoughts had not, indeed, been Annie's, when wilfully she sought her fate.