A letter from him, giving no special reason for my joining him, but urging me to come, and quickly, made me recoil conscience-stricken from the Gehenna into which I was falling. You will find the letter—the last I had from him, in this packet: read it, and burn it with mine. Of course, no one has ever seen it, or will ever see it, except yourself.
I started from London immediately, in great restlessness and anguish of mind; for though I had been no worse than my neighbours, or so bad as many of them—I knew what Dallas was—and how his pure life, sanctified, though I guessed it not, by the shadow of coming death, would look beside this evil life of mine. I was very miserable; and a lad not used to misery is then in the quicksands of temptation. He is grateful to any one who will save him from himself—give him a narcotic and let his torment sleep.
I mention this only as a fact, not an extenuation. Though, in some degree, Max Urquhart the man has long since learned to pity Max Urquhart the boy.
—Here I paused, to read this over, and see if I have said all I wished therein. The narrative seems clear. You will perceive, I try as much as I can to make it a mere history as if of another person, and thus far I think I have done so. The rest I now proceed to tell you, as circumstantially and calmly as I can.
But first, before you learn any more about me, let me bid you remember how I loved you, how you permitted me to love you—how you have been mine, heart, and eyes, and tender lips; you know you were mine. You cannot alter that. If I were the veriest wretch alive, you once saw in me something worth loving, and you did love me. Not after the fashion of those lads and lassies who went courting along the Scores at St. Andrews—but solemnly—deeply—as those love who expect one day to be husband and wife. Remember, we were to have been married, Theodora.—
I found my quickest route to Pau was by Southampton to Havre. But in the dusk of the morning I mistook the coach; my luggage went direct, and I found myself, having travelled some hours, on the road—not to Southampton, but to Salisbury. This was told me after some jocularity, at what he thought a vastly amusing piece of “greenness” on my part, by the coachman. That is, the gentleman who drove the coach.
He soon took care to let me know he was a gentleman—and that, like many young men of rank and fashion at that time, he was acting Jehu only “for a spree.” He talked so large, I should have taken him for a nobleman, or a baronet at least—had he not accidently told me his name; though he explained that it was not as humble as it seemed, and expatiated much upon the antiquity, wealth, and aristocratic connections of his “family.”
His conversation, though loud and coarse, was amusing; and he patronised me extremely.
I would rather not say a word more than is necessary concerning this person—he is dead. As before stated, I never knew anything of him excepting his name, which you shall have by-and-by; but I guessed that his life had not been a creditable one. He looked about thirty, or a little older.
When the coach stopped—at the very inn where I am now writing, the White Hart, Salisbury, he insisted on my stopping too, as it was a bitter cold night and the moon would not rise till two in the morning—he said that, I mind well.