“Why, then you have robbed me of ten guineas, and must take the usual consequences of robbery.”
Darvil started to his feet—his eyes glared—he grasped the carving-knife before him.
“You are a bold fellow,” said the banker, quietly; “but it won’t do. It is not worth your while to murder me; and I am a man sure to be missed.”
Darvil sank down, sullen and foiled. The respectable man was more than a match for the villain.
“Had you been as poor as I,—Gad! what a rogue you would have been!”
“I think not,” said the banker; “I believe roguery to be a very bad policy. Perhaps once I was almost as poor as you are, but I never turned rogue.”
“You never were in my circumstances,” returned Darvil, gloomily. “I was a gentleman’s son. Come, you shall hear my story. My father was well-born, but married a maid-servant when he was at college; his family disowned him, and left him to starve. He died in the struggle against a poverty he was not brought up to, and my dam went into service again; became housekeeper to an old bachelor—sent me to school—but mother had a family by the old bachelor, and I was taken from school and put to trade. All hated me—for I was ugly; damn them! Mother cut me—I wanted money—robbed the old bachelor—was sent to gaol, and learned there a lesson or two how to rob better in future. Mother died,—I was adrift on the world. The world was my foe—could not make it up with the world, so we went to war;—you understand, old boy? Married a poor woman and pretty;—wife made me jealous—had learned to suspect every one. Alice born—did not believe her mine: not like me—perhaps a gentleman’s child. I hate—I loathe gentlemen. Got drunk one night—kicked my wife in the stomach three weeks after her confinement. Wife died—tried for my life—got off. Went to another county—having had a sort of education, and being sharp eno’, got work as a mechanic. Hated work just as I hated gentlemen—for was I not by blood a gentleman? There was the curse. Alice grew up; never looked on her as my flesh and blood. Her mother was a w——! Why should not she be one? There, that’s enough. Plenty of excuse, I think, for all I have ever done. Curse the world—curse the rich—curse the handsome—curse—curse all!”
“You have been a very foolish man,” said the banker; “and seem to me to have had very good cards, if you had known how to play them. However, that is your lookout. It is not yet too late to repent; age is creeping on you.—Man, there is another world.”
The banker said the last words with a tone of solemn and even dignified adjuration.
“You think so—do you?” said Darvil, staring at him.