“Come and sit down here, and I will tell you all,” said Harry, taking her hand and leading her to the arbour. “I have folly to confess. I am lowered in my own sight, and I fear I must be in yours,” said Harry, in a trembling voice, very unlike his usual tone.
“What is it you have done?” asked Mabel, much agitated. “Nothing wrong, surely; nothing wrong?”
“Yes, I have done much that is wrong. I was wrong to trust to a false friend, to visit scenes of dissipation with him, to stake money I could not afford to lose, to lose my senses so as no longer to have command over my actions. He plied me with wine till I knew not what I was about, and during that time I put my name to papers which have brought irretrievable ruin on me. My honour, oh! Mabel, my honour is lost! No one will again trust me.”
“But who is the person of whom you speak, Harry? who could gain such influence over you—surely not Mr Kyffin?”
“Oh! no, no. Had I remained with him, this would not have happened. He is one whose name I scarcely like to mention to you, Mabel; for he is, I believe, related to you. He is Silas Sleech, the son of the lawyer at Lynderton.”
“Oh, he is a man I never could endure, even as a girl. His countenance alone made me always fancy he must be a hypocrite. But how could such a man gain an influence over you, Harry?”
Harry had to enter more into details than he had before done. Still, “blessed in the faith of woman,” Mabel could not believe him as guilty as he was inclined to consider himself.
“Such is my history,” he said at last, “since I parted from you; and now, Mabel, I come to set you free. I have no right to bind you to so lost, so penniless a wretch as I am; and yet with the thought that I might still be worthy of you, I feel confident that I could once more rise to a position in which I might be worthy of your love. I am still young. I have resolved to enter the navy, and work my way up to the quarter-deck. Once there, I may rise to the rank your father holds. He was a post-captain when still a young man, and why should not I be, Mabel?—fame and fortune are before me. For your sake I feel sure that I may achieve them. Mabel, it was this I came to tell you. I could not go away without seeing you, and bidding you farewell. Mabel, pray for me; pray that my life may be saved, and that I may win a name worthy to offer to you. Still believe me, I could love no one but you, though you are free.”
Neither spoke for some time.
“I dare not urge you to take any other course,” Mabel said at last, “but I wish you could have consulted my kind uncle. He is too ill, however, I fear, to see you; still, he would give you wise counsel, I am sure. I would rather, indeed, that you had remained in London, and, braving the anger of Mr Coppinger, have exposed the villainy of that wretched man, Silas Sleech.”