ir return, as he was still
exceedingly nervous, Thornton insisted on his going to bed. When our
party from Lord Chester's came to the house, Thornton went into Dawson's
room, and made him swallow a large tumbler of brandy; [Note: A common
practice with thieves, who fear the weak nerves of their accomplices.]
this intoxicated him so as to make him less sensible to his dangerous
situation. Afterwards, when the picture was found, which circumstance
Thornton communicated to him, along with that of the threatening letter
sent by Glanville to the deceased, which was discovered in Tyrrell's
pocket-book, Dawson recovered courage; and justice being entirely thrown
on a wrong scent, he managed to pass his examination without suspicion.
He then went to town with Thornton, and constantly attended "the club"
to which Jonson had before introduced him; at first, among his new
comrades, and while the novel flush of the money, he had so fearfully
acquired, lasted, he partially succeeded in stifling his remorse. But
the success of crime is too contrary to nature to continue long; his
poor wife, whom, in spite of her extravagant, and his dissolute habits,
he seemed really to love, fell ill, and died; on her deathbed she
revealed the suspicions she had formed of his crime, and said, that
those suspicions had preyed upon, and finally destroyed her health; this
awoke him from the guilty torpor of his conscience. His share of the
money, too, the greater part of which Thornton had bullied out of him,
was gone. He fell, as Job had said, into despondency and gloom, and
often spoke to Thornton so forcibly of his remorse, and so earnestly
of his gnawing and restless desire to appease his mind, by surrendering
himself to justice, that the fears of that villain grew, at length, so
thoroughly alarmed, as to procure his removal to his present abode.

It was here that his real punishment commenced; closely confined to his
apartment, at the remotest corner of the house, his solitude was never
broken but by the short and hurried visits of his female gaoler, and
(worse even than loneliness), the occasional invasions of Thornton.
There appeared to be in that abandoned wretch what, for the honour of
human nature, is but rarely found, viz., a love of sin, not for
its objects, but itself. With a malignity, doubly fiendish from its
inutility, he forbade Dawson the only indulgence he craved--a light,
during the dark hours; and not only insulted him for his cowar