"I can't tell that, either," cried I, driven to desperation by sheer embarrassment "It's no use asking me any more. I have been living for the last five or six weeks like one under a spell of enchantment. I can no more account for my actions than a patient in Swift's Hospital. I 'm afraid to commit my scattered thoughts to paper, lest they might convict me of insanity. I know and feel that I am a responsible being, but somehow my notions of right and wrong are so confused, I have learned to look on so many things differently from what I used, that I 'd cut a sorry figure under cross-examination on any matter of morality. There's the whole truth of it now. I 'd have kept it to myself if I could; I 'm heartily ashamed at owning to it—but I can't help it—it would come out. Therefore, don't bother me with, 'Why did you do this?' 'What made you do that?' for I can give you no reasons for anything."
"By Jove! this is a very singular affair," said he, leaning over the back of a chair, and staring me steadfastly in the face. "Your age—your standing in society—your appearance generally, Mr. Dodd, would, I feel bound to say, rather—" Here he hesitated and faltered, as if the right word was not forthcoming; and so I continued for him,—
"Just so, my Lord; would rather refute than fix upon me such an imputation. I 'm not very like the kind of man that figures usually in these sort of cases."
"As to that," said he, cautiously, "there is no saying. I am now only speaking my own private sentiments, the result of impressions made upon myself as an individual. Courts of Law take their own views of these things; and the House of Lords has also its own way of regarding them."
The words threw me into a cold perspiration from head to foot, Tom! Courts of Law! and the House of Lords! was n't that a pretty prospect for an encumbered Irish gentleman? A shot, or even two, at twelve or fourteen paces, cannot be a very expensive thing, in a pecuniary point, to any man, and there 's an awkwardness in declining it if others are anxious to have it, so that you appear ungracious and disobliging. But Westminster Hall and St. Stephen's, Tom, is mighty different. I won't speak of the disgrace that attends such a proceeding at my time of life, nor the hue-and-cry that the Press sets up at you, and follows you with to your own hearth,—"the place from whence you came," and where now your wife waits for you—to perform the last sentence of the law. I won't allude to "Punch" and the "Illustrated News," that live upon you for three weeks; but I 'll just take the thing in its simplest form,—financially. Why, racing, railroads, contested elections, are nothing to it. You go to work exactly as Cobden says France and England do with their armaments: Chatham launches a seventy-four, and out comes Cherbourg with a line-of-battle ship,—"Injured Husband," secures Sir Fitzroy Kelly; "Heartless Seducer," sends his brief to Cock-burn. It's a game of brag from that moment; and there's as much scheming and plotting to get a hold of Frank Murphy as if he was the knave of spades! It matters little or nothing what the upshot of the case may be; you may sink the enemy, or be compelled to strike your own flag; it does n't signify, in the least; the damages of the action are fatal to you.
Now, Tom, although I never speculated in all my life as to figuring in an affair like this, these considerations were often strongly impressed upon me by reading the newspapers, and I bad come to the conclusion that a man should never think of defending an action of this kind, no more than he would a petition against his election, and for the same reason. Since, although not actually guilty in the one case or the other, you are certain to have committed so many indiscretions,—written, maybe, so many ridiculous letters,—and, in fact, exposed yourself so much, that if you cannot keep out of sight altogether, the next best thing is, let the judgment go by default. I say this to show you that the moment my Lord threw out the hint about law I had made up my mind from that instant.
"I sincerely wish," said he, after some deliberation, "that I could hit upon any mode of arranging this affair; for although I own you have made a strongly favorable impression upon me, 'Dodd,'"—he called me Dodd here, quite like an old friend,—"we cannot expect that Hampton could concur in this view. The fact is, the whole thing has got so much blazed abroad,—they are so well known in the fashionable world, both home and foreign,—she is so very handsome, so much admired, and he is such a charming fellow,—the case has created a kind of European éclat. Looking at the matter candidly, there may be a good deal in what you have said, but as a man of the world, I am forced to say that Hampton must shoot you, or sue for a divorce. I am well aware that whichever course he adopts many will condemn him. In the clubs there will be always parties. There may spring up even a kind of juste milieu, who will say, 'Now that poor Dodd is dead, I wonder if he really was guilty?'"
"I protest I feel very grateful to them, my Lord," said I. But he paid no attention to my remark, and went on,—
"If vengeance be all that a man looks for, probably the law of the land will do as much for him as the law of honor. You ruin a fellow, irretrievably ruin him, by an action of this kind. You probably remember Sir Gaybrook Foster, that ran off with Lady Mudford? Well, he had a splendid estate, did n't owe a shilling, they said, before that; they tell me now that some one saw him the other day at Geelong, croupier to a small 'hell.' Then there was Lackington, whom we used to call the 'Cool of the Evening.'"
"I never knew one of them, my Lord," said I, impatiently, for I did n't care to hear all the illustrations of his theory.