se grew so desperate, that I dared no
longer look it in the face; and I lived under a sort of
perpetual nightmare.

"As long as I had any money left, I paid what I lost; then I
ran into debt to the masters of the different clubs, and
borrowed money of such of my acquaintance as were kind or
imprudent enough to lend it. To others I lost large sums on
credit, under promises to pay them on a future day. When the
day arrived and found me unable to meet my engagements, I was
induced to give bills to my creditors for other and distant
days. Again those days came, and again they found me
insolvent. I will not, I need not, go through all the
miserable details of the difficulties in which I was
entangled, of the humiliating excuses I had to make, and the
more humiliating threats and reproaches I had to endure. It is
enough to say that, with desperate infatuation, I made a
solemn promise to my creditors to satisfy them all on the
first day of the ensuing month, and on the fulfilment of that
promise it depended, whether my character as a gentleman was
still preserved or irretrievably lost. Ellen, I cannot attempt
to describe to you what I suffered at that time. The wrestling
with an impossibility, the struggle after what was
unattainable, the incapability of resigning myself to what
seemed inevitable, the powerless rage, the smarting pride, the
agonised self-reproach; it was dreadful, and no one to speak
to, or turn to..."

"And why, in the name of Heaven, why did you not appeal to my
uncle? Why did you not speak to Edward Middleton?"

An expression of sudden pain and a burning flush spread over
Henry's countenance at this question. After a moment's
hesitation he said, "I must tell you _all_, though to tell you
this gives me a pang which would almost atone for any degree
of guilt. You must know, then, that it was at Oxford that I
acquired a taste for gambling, and that there, I ran in some
measure the same course of imprudence, and went through the
same suffering that I have just described to you, except that
the sums which I lost amounted to hundreds instead of
thousands. Edward, at that time, observed that something
weighed on my spirits, and easily drew from me a confession of
my folly, and my embarrassments. After lecturing me for some
days on the subject, he brought me a draught for the amount of
what I had lost, which he had obtained for me from Mr.
Middleton, but only on the condition that I would give them
both my