"

"Listen, Reginald, my dear boy--almost my son; listen, and you will have
nothing but pity for the poor man upstairs, and deeper love for my noble
daughter. But, first, have I your word of honour that what I tell you
shall remain a secret?"

Reginald bowed.

"Three years ago, this young man, whose name is not Richards," began
Captain Danton, "ran away from home, and began life on his own account.
He had been a wilful, headstrong, passionate boy always, but yet loving
and generous. He fled from his friends, in a miserable hour of passion,
and never returned to them any more; for the sick, sinful, broken-down,
wretched man who returned was as different from the hot-headed,
impetuous, happy boy, as day differs from night.

"He fled from home, and went to New York. He was, as I am, a sailor; he
had command of a vessel at the age of nineteen; but he gave up the sea,
and earned a livelihood in that city for some months by painting and
selling water-colour sketches, at which he was remarkably clever.
Gradually his downward course began. The wine-bottle, the gaming-table,
were the first milestones on the road to ruin. The gambling-halls
became, at length, his continual haunt. One day he was worth thousands;
the next, he did not possess a stiver. The excitement grew on him. He
became, before the end of the year, a confirmed and notorious gambler.

"One night the crisis in his life came. He was at a Bowery theatre, to
see a Christmas pantomime. It was a fairy spectacle, and the stage was
crowded with ballet-girls. There was one among them, the loveliest
creature, it seemed to him, he had ever seen, with whom, in one mad
moment, he fell passionately in love. A friend of his, by name Furniss,
laughed at his raptures. 'Don't you know her, Harry?' said he; 'she
boards in the same house with you. She is a little grisette, a little
shop-girl, only hired to look pretty, standing there, while this fairy
pantomime lasts. You have seen her fifty times.'

"Yes, he had seen her repeatedly. He remembered it when his friend
spoke, and he had never thought of her until now. The new infatuation
took possession of him, body and soul. He made her acquaintance next
morning, and found out she was, as his friend had said, a shop-girl.
What did he care; if she had been a rag-picker, it would have been all
one to this young madman. In a fortnight he proposed; in a month they
were married, and the third step on the road to ruin was taken.

"Ha