"Not in money. She found me grievously ill at Dr. Mountchance's on London Bridge. Mountchance is a quack and a charlatan, and she had me carried to her own lodgings else I must have died. I'd scarce recovered from my wound when I was arrested at Rofflash's instigation and thrown into Newgate."
"I suppose she did right and you, too, Mr. Vane," rejoined Lavinia with a toss of her head. "It is naught to do with me. Let us talk of other matters. Mr. Gay tells me your father's a clergyman."
"Yes. He would have had me be one too, but I hated everything to do with the Church. We parted in anger, and I went my own way. Ill luck followed me. I've made a mess of my life. Everything went wrong. I thought Fortune was coming my way when I met you, but she turned her back."
"That wasn't my fault, Mr. Vane."
"Great heaven, no! 'Twas entirely my own folly and accursed fate. I've no one to blame but myself. Wine was an easy way of drowning my troubles."
"You've no need to remind me of that, Mr. Vane," put in Lavinia hastily.
"I beg your pardon for going over my sins, but open confession's good for the soul, they say."
"I'd rather not hear about your sins, Mr. Vane. I don't want to listen when you talk like that. Tell me something of the other side."
"I doubt if there is another side," he rejoined in deep dejection. "I've had to come back to my father. He's vicar of a parish not far from here. You see my stay in Newgate and my trial ruined me. The publishers refused me employment and even my old companions turned their backs upon me."
"That was no loss."