Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/318

316 As to Sir Howard Sinclair, ever ruled by his love of wealth, he married the widow Belmour, on her side influenced to the union by the honour she felt conferred by his title. The promised gratification of her pride, however, in being styled Her Ladyship, more than met with its counterbalance, in the ill-usage she received from the Baronet; from whom she was compelled to separate, contenting herself with a circumscribed allowance from her own property. While thus becoming the chastiser of her who had married him from motives of ambition, Sir Howard, also, was himself doomed to receive a punishment, due in a manner to his levities and vices. Sporting his curricle with a pair of young spirited horses, he was thrown from his seat; the rampant pair, plunging forward, drew the vehicle over the leg of Sir Howard, who had in the fall dislocated his shoulder. Having suffered amputation, he was obliged to hobble through life with an amputated limb, receiving by this means that final check to his vanity, which we may hope proved profitable towards effecting his reformation.

With regard to Melliphant, whom we left at his cousin Sir Arthur's ancient castle in Wales, no sooner were his wounds healed, than he was discovered by his creditors, whose demands against him being great and numerous, he was confined to the Fleet for the rest of his life,—giving him leisure for that reflection on his past proceedings, so necessary ere the last hour might surprise him, and suddenly close the scene of an ill-spent existence.