"'And can you expect, Mr. Mornington, that any virtuous, well-educated woman could place her happiness in the keeping of one who has shown such little self-government; who chooses for his associates men of loose morals and bad character. Your constant companion and bosom friend is a notorious gambler, a man whose society is scouted by all honourable men. I pity you, Philip; weep for you; pray for you; and God only knows the agony which this hour has cost me; but we must meet as lovers and friends no more.'
"She glided from the room, and I stood for some minutes stupidly staring after her, with the horrible consciousness of having exchanged a pearl of great price, for the base coin in which pleasure pays her deluded followers, and only felt the inestimable value of the treasure I had lost, when it was no longer in my power to recover it.
"I returned to the company I had quitted. I betted and lost; plunged madly on; staked my whole property on a desperate chance, and returned from the races, forsaken by my gay companions, a heart-broken and ruined man!
"It was night when I reached London. Not wishing to encounter any of my late associates, I entered a coffee-house seldom frequented by men of their class, and called for a bottle of wine.
"The place was ill-lighted and solitary. I threw myself into a far corner of my box, and, for the first time (for I never was a drinker) tried to drown care in the intoxicating bowl.
"The wine, instead of soothing, only increased the fever of my spirit, and I began to review with bitterness the insanity of my conduct for the last few months. With a brain on fire with the wine, I continued eagerly to swallow, and a heart as dull and cold as ice from recent mortification and disappointment, I sank with my head upon the table into a sort of waking trance, conscious of surrounding objects, but unable to rouse myself from the stupor which held every faculty in its leaden grasp.
"Two men entered the box. I heard one say to the other, in a voice which seemed familiar.
"'This place is occupied, we had better go to another.'
"'The fellow's drunk,' returned his companion, and may be considered as non compos. He has lost all knowledge of himself, and therefore can take no notice of us.'
"Feeling little interest in anything beyond my own misery, I gave no signs of life or motion, beyond pressing my burning brow more tightly against my folded hands, which rested on the table.