he has made me. I would
as soon have believed myself capable of the treachery, the unfeeling
revenge--' Again he was unable to say more, and struggling for
utterance, he stamped his foot against the floor, and groaned aloud with
rage and pain.

Percy persuaded him to lie down again, and could not refrain from
forcible expressions of indignation, as he recollected the sneering
exultation of Gardner's tone of triumph over one so open-hearted and
confiding.

It was a moment when sympathy unlocked the heart, and shame was lost
in the sense of injury. Nothing more was needed to call from Arthur the
history of his wrongs, as well as he was able to tell it, eking out with
his papers the incoherent sentences which he was unable to finish, so
that Percy succeeded in collecting, from his broken narration, an idea
of the state of affairs.

The horses, kept jointly at his expense and that of Gardner, had been
the occasion of serious debts; and on Gardner's leaving England, there
had been a pressure on Colonel Martindale that rendered him anxious to
free himself, even at the cost of his commission. Gardner, on the other
hand, had, it appeared, been desirous to have him at Boulogne, perhaps,
at first, merely as a means of subsistence during the year of probation,
and on the failure of the first attempt at bringing him thither, had
written to invite him, holding out as an inducement, that he was himself
desirous of being disembarrassed, in order that Miss Brandon might
find him clear of this entanglement, and representing that he had still
property enough to clear off his portion of the liability.

With this view Arthur had gone out to Boulogne to meet him, but had
found him dilatory in entering on business, and was drawn into taking
part in the amusements of the place; living in a state of fevered
excitement, which aggravated his indisposition and confused his
perceptions, so that he fell more completely than ever into the power
of his false friend, and was argued into relinquishing his project of
selling the horses, and into taking up larger sums for keeping them on.
In fact, the sensation that a severe cold was impending, and disgust at
the notion of being laid up in such company rendered him doubly facile;
and, in restless impatience to get away and avoid discussion, he acceded
to everything, and signed whatever Gardner pleased. Not till he was
on the point of embarking, after having gambled away most of his ready
money, did