And when she died the end also began for him.

I was taken from my school.

So dreadfully was he broken that for months he lay abed never speaking, scarcely eating.

And all day long during those dreary months I sat alone in that hushed house of death.
"Debt came first; then sheriffs; then suddenly came this war upon us.
But nothing aroused him from his lethargy; and all day long he brooded there in silence, day after day, until our creditors would endure no longer, and the bailiff menaced him.

Confused and frightened, I implored him to leave the city--jails seeming to me far more terrible than death--and at last persuaded him to the old life once more.
"So, to avoid a debtor's prison, we took the open road again.