The question was torturous. My voice at last found utterance. I raised my eyes, and looked full at Mr. Hartley. How well that look betrayed my secret sufferings—the bitterest a man can know—those of self-contempt and conscious humiliation!
“Had I hundreds, Mr. Hartley, they should be placed freely at your disposal, and I should feel too proud in having the power of convincing you that I have not forgotten kindnesses. I want the means—for on yonder table lies all the money I am master of.”
“What!” he exclaimed, “only a few shillings left of two hundred pounds?”
“‘Tis true, by Heaven!”
“Then, sir, are you lower than the wretch who asks for alms upon the road-side. You are a pauper by vice; he a beggar through misfortune. Listen, boy, and learn how deep is your degradation. A man to whom you were indebted for good services seeks your assistance, and whatever might have been your wishes to render it, folly has placed the means beyond your reach; and, to a noble spirit, how painful is the inability of returning a former obligation! And for what did you deprive yourself of the power of being generous? To lavish money upon knaves and gamblers—or, still more wretched infatuation,—to win the heartless smiles of beauty?”
He paused, as if to observe the effect of his reproof, and one glance attested its influence. In my agitated countenance the inward workings of the breast were visible; for I had never felt the agony of conscious shame and self-reproach till now. No wonder that under such feelings, this singular personage elicited step by step, every particular touching my connexion with Santonier and his confederates. There are times when men feel their positions so intolerable, that, with despairing recklessness, they court no concealment, but place their offendings in their worst light. Such feelings were mine; and, undeterred by the strongly-expressed scorn and displeasure of Mr. Hartley, I brought the confessions of my folly to a close.
“My words have pained you?—it is all the better,” continued my stern monitor, “as it affords reasonable ground for hoping that the error lies in the head, and not in the heart. Vice has no blush; and, when the cheek reddens at the recollection of past imprudence, it may be expected that future follies will be eschewed. But how could you have been plundered so unsuspectingly? I only marvel that the veriest novice ever loosed upon a vicious town, could not in one day’s acquaintance have detected the barefaced swindling of your noble friends.”
“You seem to know them?” I inquired.
“Yes; and for that profitable knowledge I own myself indebted to Mr. Hector O’Halloran.”
“To me, sir?” I exclaimed.