all his
self-denial, fortitude, perils, virtue, wasted and worse than wasted;
for it kept burning and stinging him, that, had he stayed lazily,
selfishly at home, he should have saved his Margaret's life.

These two poisons, raging together in his young blood, maddened and
demoralized him. He rushed fiercely into pleasure. And in those days,
even more than now, pleasure was vice. Wine, women, gambling, whatever
could procure him an hour's excitement and a moment's oblivion. He
plunged into these things, as men tired of life have rushed among the
enemy's bullets.

The large sums he had put by for Margaret gave him ample means for
debauchery, and he was soon the leader of those loose companions he had
hitherto kept at a distance.

His heart deteriorated along with his morals.

He sulked with his old landlady for thrusting gentle advice and warning
on him; and finally removed to another part of the town, to be clear of
remonstrance and reminiscences. When he had carried this game on some
time, his hand became less steady, and he could no longer write to
satisfy himself. Moreover, his patience declined as the habits of
pleasure grew on him. So he gave up that art, and took likenesses in
colours.

But this he neglected whenever the idle rakes, his companions, came for
him.

And so he dived in foul waters, seeking that sorry oyster-shell,
Oblivion.

It is not my business to paint at full length the scenes of coarse vice
in which this unhappy young man now played a part. But it is my business
to impress the broad truth, that he was a rake, a debauchee, and a
drunkard, and one of the wildest, loosest, and wickedest young men in
Rome.

They are no lovers of truth, nor of mankind, who conceal or slur the
wickedness of the good, and so by their want of candour rob despondent
sinners of hope.

Enough, the man was not born to do things by halves. And he was not
vicious by halves.

His humble female friends often gossiped about him. His old landlady
told Teresa he was going to the bad, and prayed her to try and find out
where he was.

Teresa told her husband Lodovico his sad story, and bade him look about
and see if he could discover the young man's present abode. "Shouldst
remember his face, Lodovico mio?"

"Teresa, a man in my way of life never forgets a face, least of all a
benefactor's. But thou knowest I seldom go abroad by daylight."

Teresa sighed. "And how long is it to be so, Lodovico?"

"Till some cava