He stood erect and hopeful to-day, and to-morrow lay
prone and despairing under the heel of his enemy.
At the end of his second term in Congress the people of his district
rejected him. They could tolerate a certain degree of drunkenness
and demoralization in their representative, but Ridley had fallen
too low. They would have him no longer, and so he was left out in
the party nomination and sent back into private life hurt,
humiliated and in debt. No clients awaited his return. His
law-office had been closed for years, and there was little
encouragement to open it again in the old place. For some weeks
after his failure to get the nomination Ridley drank more
desperately than ever, and was in a state of intoxication nearly all
the while. His poor wife, who clung to him through all with an
unwavering fidelity, was nearly broken-hearted. In vain had
relatives and friends interposed. No argument nor persuasion could
induce her to abandon him. "He is my husband," was her only reply,
"and I will not leave him."
One night he was brought home insensible. He had fallen in the
street where some repairs were being made, and had received serious
injuries which confined him to the house for two or three weeks.
This gave time for reflection and repentance. The shame and remorse
that filled his soul as he looked at his sad, pale wife and
neglected children, and thought of his tarnished name and lost
opportunities, spurred him to new and firmer resolves than ever
before made.
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