"Disappointed! By G––––! yes. Did you ever know any man who had so much right to be disappointed as I have? I did love her, Mr. Palliser. Nay, by heavens! I do love her. Out here I will dare to say as much even to you. I shall never try to see her again. All that is over, of course. I've been a fool about her as I have been about everything. But I did love her."
"I believe it, Mr. Fitzgerald."
"It was not altogether her money. But think what it would have been to me, Mr. Palliser. Think what a chance I had, and what a chance I lost. I should have been at the top of everything,—as now I am at the bottom. I should not have spent that. There would have been enough of it to have saved me. And then I might have done something good instead of crawling about almost in fear of that beast who is watching us."
"It has been ordered otherwise," said Mr. Palliser, not knowing what to say.
"Yes; it has been ordered, with a vengeance! It seems to have been ordered that I'm to go to the devil; but I don't know who gave the orders, and I don't know why."
Mr. Palliser had not time to explain to his friend that the orders had been given, in a very peremptory way, by himself, as he was anxious to bring back the conversation to his own point. He wished to give some serviceable, and, if possible, permanent aid to the poor ne'er-do-well; but he did not wish to talk more than could be helped about his own wife.
"There is an old saying, which you will remember well," said he, "that the way to good manners is never too late."
"That's nonsense," said Burgo. "It's too late when the man feels the knot round his neck at the Old Bailey."
"Perhaps not, even then. Indeed, we may say, certainly not, if the man be still able to take the right way. But I don't want to preach to you."
"It wouldn't do any good, you know."