"This is a melancholy picture, Henry Sandon!" he at length said. "I am, at least, glad that you do not affect to brazen out your crime, but that you show a proper sense of its enormity. What would your upright and painstaking father have said, had he lived to see his only son in this situation?"
"He is dead!" returned the young man, hoarsely. "He is dead, and never can know any thing about it."
The unhappy delinquent experienced a sense of frightful pleasure as he uttered these words.
"It is true, he is dead; but there are others to suffer by your misconduct. Your innocent sister is living, and feels all your disgrace."
"She will marry Jones, and forget it all. I gave her a thousand pounds, and she is married before this."
"In that you are mistaken. She has returned the money, for she is, indeed, John Sandon's daughter, and Mr. Jones refuses to marry the sister of a thief."
The delinquent was vain and unreflecting, rather than selfish, and he had a natural attachment to his sister, the only other child of his parents. The blow, therefore, fell on his conscience with double force, coming from this quarter.
"Julia can compel him to marry her," said the startled brother; "he is bound by a solemn engagement, and the law will protect her."
"No law can make a man marry against his will, and your poor unfortunate sister is too tender of your feelings whatever you may havee been of hers, to wish to give Mr. Jones an opportunity of defending himself by exposing your crime. But this is wasting words, Mr. Sandon, for I am wanted in the office, where I have left things in the hands of an inexperienced substitute. Of course you are not prepared to defend an act, that your conscience must tell you is inexcusable."
"I am afraid, Mr. Green, I have been a little thoughtless or, perhaps, it would be better to say, unlucky."