He had lived on his wits, in the lowest and basest meaning of the phrase.

He had married a poor ignorant woman, who had served as a waitress at some low eating-house, who had unexpectedly come into a little money, and whose small inheritance he had mercilessly squandered to the last farthing.

In plain terms, he was an incorrigible scoundrel; and he had now added one more to the list of his many misdemeanors by impudently breaking the conditions on which Mrs.
Vanstone had hitherto assisted him.

She had written at once to the address indicated on his card, in such terms and to such purpose as would prevent him, she hoped and believed, from ever venturing near the house again.

Such were the terms in which Mrs.Vanstone concluded that first part of her letter which referred exclusively to Captain Wragge.
Although the statement thus presented implied a weakness in Mrs.
Vanstone's character which Miss Garth, after many years of intimate experience, had never detected, she accepted the explanation as a matter of course; receiving it all the more readily inasmuch as it might, without impropriety, be communicated in substance to appease the irritated curiosity of the two young ladies.