ch
he found himself, as many a man lapses into many a condition, without
perceiving the accumulative power of its separate circumstances. When
in the distrust engendered by his wretched childhood and the action for
evil--never yet for good within his knowledge then--of his father and
his father's wealth on all within their influence, he conceived the idea
of his first deception, it was meant to be harmless, it was to last
but a few hours or days, it was to involve in it only the girl so
capriciously forced upon him and upon whom he was so capriciously
forced, and it was honestly meant well towards her. For, if he had
found her unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through her heart
inclining to another man or for any other cause), he would seriously
have said: 'This is another of the old perverted uses of the
misery-making money. I will let it go to my and my sister's only
protectors and friends.' When the snare into which he fell so
outstripped his first intention as that he found himself placarded by
the police authorities upon the London walls for dead, he confusedly
accepted the aid that fell upon him, without considering how firmly it
must seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When he
saw them, and knew them, and even from his vantage-ground of inspection
could find no flaw in them, he asked himself, 'And shall I come to life
to dispossess such people as these?' There was no good to set against
the putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from Bella's own
lips when he stood tapping at the door on that night of his taking
the lodgings, that the marriage would have been on her part thoroughly
mercenary. He had since tried her, in his own unknown person and
supposed station, and she not only rejected his advances but resented
them. Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the meanness of
punishing her? Yet, by coming to life and accepting the condition of the
inheritance, he must do the former; and by coming to life and rejecting
it, he must do the latter.

Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implication
of an innocent man in his supposed murder. He would obtain complete
retraction from the accuser, and set the wrong right; but clearly the
wrong could never have been done if he had never planned a deception.
Then, whatever inconvenience or distress of mind the deception cost him,
it was manful repentantly to accept as among its consequences, and make