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self unhurt; nay, pleased at your destruction--So your words mean. Why, tell it to the world: I am too poor to find a friend in't. _Bev._ A friend! What's he? I had a friend. _Stu._ And have one still. _Bev._ Ay; I'll tell you of this friend. He found me happiest of the happy; fortune and honour crowned me; and love and peace lived in my heart. One spark of folly lurked there; That too he found; and by deceitful breath, blew it to flames that have consumed me. This friend were You to Me. _Stu._ A little more perhaps--The friend who gave his all to save you; and not succeeding, chose ruin with you. But no matter--I have undone you, and am a villain. _Bev._ No; I think not. The villains are within. _Stu._ What villains? _Bev._ Dawson and the rest--We have been dupes to sharpers. _Stu._ How know you this? I have had doubts, as well as You; yet still as fortune changed, I blushed at my own thoughts. But You have proofs, perhaps? _Bev._ Ay, damned ones. Repeated losses: night after night, and no reverse. Chance has no hand in this. _Stu._ I think more charitably; yet I am peevish in my nature, and apt to doubt. The world speaks fairly of this Dawson; so does it of the rest. We have watched them closely too. But 'tis a right usurped by losers, to think the winners knaves. We'll have more manhood in us. _Bev._ I know not what to think. This night has stung me to the quick--blasted my reputation too. I have bound my honour to these vipers; played meanly upon credit, till I tired them; and now they shun me, to rifle one another. What's to be done? _Stu._ Nothing. My counsels have been fatal. _Bev._ By heaven! I'll not survive this shame--Traitor! 'tis You have brought it on me. (_Taking hold of him._) Shew me the means to save me, or I'll commit a murder here, and next upon myself. _Stu._ Why, do it then, and rid me of ingratitude. _Bev._ Prithee, forgive this language--I speak I know not what. Rage and despair are in my heart, and hurry me to madness. My home is horror to me--I'll not return to't. Speak quickly; tell me, if in this wreck of fortune, one hope remains? Name it, and be my oracle. _Stu._ To vent your curses on--You have bestowed them liberally. Take your own counsel: and should a desperate hope present itself, 'twill suit your desperate fortune. I'll not advise you. _Bev._ What hope? By heaven! I'll catch at it, however desperate. I am so sunk in misery, it cannot lay me low
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