, but nobody knew. The old Lord was away for a year, and when
he came home he brought a young wife back with him, and there she has
been ever since. Stephens, the butler, did tell me once that she was the
light of the house when fust she came, but what with her husband's mean
and aggravatin' way, and what with her loneliness--for he hates to see a
visitor within his doors; and what with his bitter words--for he has a
tongue like a hornet's sting, her life all went out of her, and she
became a white, silent creature, moping about the country lanes. Some
say that she loved another man, and that it was just the riches of the
old Lord which tempted her to be false to her lover, and that now she
is eating her heart out because she has lost the one without being any
nearer to the other, for she might be the poorest woman in the parish
for all the money that she has the handling of."

Well, sir, you can imagine that it did not interest me very much to hear
about the quarrels between a Lord and a Lady. What did it matter to me
if she hated the sound of his voice, or if he put every indignity upon
her in the hope of breaking her spirit, and spoke to her as he would
never have dared to speak to one of his servants? The landlord told me
of these things, and of many more like them, but they passed out of my
mind, for they were no concern of mine. But what I did want to hear was
the form in which Lord Mannering kept his riches. Title-deeds and stock
certificates are but paper, and more danger than profit to the man who
takes them. But metal and stones are worth a risk. And then, as if he
were answering my very thoughts, the landlord told me of Lord
Mannering's great collection of gold medals, that it was the most
valuable in the world, and that it was reckoned that if they were put
into a sack the strongest man in the parish would not be able to raise
them. Then his wife called him, and he and I went to our beds.

I am not arguing to make out a case for myself, but I beg you, sir, to
bear all the facts in your mind, and to ask yourself whether a man could
be more sorely tempted than I was. I make bold to say that there are few
who could have held out against it. There I lay on my bed that night, a
desperate man without hope or work, and with my last shilling in my
pocket. I had tried to be honest, and honest folk had turned their backs
upon me. They taunted me for theft; and yet they pushed me towards it. I
was caught in the stream