lf-vindication which might perhaps yet soften
a nature possessed of such depths of sweetness as that which appeared
now so cruel and so bitter. He would not yet despond--not yet commission
her to give his last farewell to Sophy.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MAN-EATER CONTINUES TO TAKE HIS QUIET STEAK OUT OF DOLLY POOLE;
AND IS IN TURN SUBJECTED TO THE ANATOMICAL KNIFE OF THE DISSECTING
AUTHOR. TWO TRAPS ARE LAID FOR HIM--ONE BY HIS FELLOW MAN-EATERS--
ONE BY THAT DEADLY PERSECUTRIX, THE WOMAN WHO TRIES TO SAVE HIM IN
SPITE OF ALL HE CAN DO TO BE HANGED.

Meanwhile the unhappy Adolphus Poole had been the reluctant but
unfailing source from which Jasper Losely had weekly drawn the
supplies to his worthless and workless existence. Never was a man more
constrainedly benevolent, and less recompensed for pecuniary sacrifice
by applauding conscience, than the doomed inhabitant of Alhambra Villa.
In the utter failure of his attempts to discover Sophy, or to induce
Jasper to accept Colonel Morley's proposals, he saw this parasitical
monster fixed upon his entrails, like the vulture on those of the
classic sufferer in mythological tales. Jasper, indeed, had accommodated
himself to this regular and unlaborious mode of gaining "_sa pauvre
vie_." To call once a week upon his old acquaintance, frighten him with
a few threats, or force a deathlike smile from agonising lips by a
few villanous jokes, carry off his four sovereigns, and enjoy himself
thereon till pay-day duly returned, was a condition of things that
Jasper did not greatly care to improve; and truly had he said to Poole
that his earlier energy had left him. As a sensualist of Jasper's stamp
grows older and falls lower, indolence gradually usurps the place once
occupied by vanity or ambition. Jasper was bitterly aware that his old
comeliness was gone; that never more could he ensnare a maiden's heart
or a widow's gold. And when this truth was fully brought home to him,
it made a strange revolution in all his habits. He cared no longer for
dress and gewgaws--sought rather to hide himself than to parade. In the
neglect of the person he had once so idolised--in the coarse roughness
which now characterised his exterior--there was that sullen despair
which the vain only know when what had made them dainty and jocund is
gone for ever. The human mind, in deteriorating, fits itself to the
sphere into which it declines. Jasper would not now, if he could, have
driven a