e
whom your daintier thief disclaims; spies into unguarded areas, or
cowardly skulkers by blind walls; while in the paltry girl, who you
say is so well provided for, I see the last and sole resource which may
prevent you from being still more degraded, still more afflicted by your
son."

"What is it you want? Even if Sophy were in your power, Darrell would
not be more disposed to enrich or relieve you. He will never believe
your tale, nor deign even to look into its proofs."

"He might at last," said Jasper, evasively. "Surely with all that
wealth, no nearer heir than a remote kinsman in the son of a beggared
spendthrift by a linendraper's daughter--he should need a grandchild
more than you do; yet the proofs you speak of convinced yourself; you
believe my tale."

"Believe--yes, for that belief was everything in the world, to me! Ah,
remember how joyously, when my term of sentence expired, I hastened
to seek you at Paris, deceived by the rare letters with which you had
deigned to cheer me--fondly dreaming that, in expiating your crime,
I should have my reward in your redemption--should live to see you
honoured, honest, good--live to think your mother watched us from heaven
with a smile on both--and that we should both join her at last--you
purified by my atonement! Oh, and when I saw you so sunken, so hardened,
exulting in vice as in a glory--bravo and partner in a gambler's
hell--or, worse still, living on the plunder of miserable women, even
the almsman of that vile Desmarets--my son, my son, my lost Lizzy's son
blotted out of my world for ever!--then, then I should have died if you
had not said, boasting of the lie which had wrung the gold from Darrell,
'But the child lives still.' Believe you--oh, yes, yes--for in that
belief something was still left to me to cherish, to love, to live for!"

Here the old man's hurried voice died away in a passionate sob; and the
direful son, all reprobate though he was, slid from his chair, and bowed
himself at his father's knee, covering his face with fell hands that
trembled. "Sir, sir," he said, in broken reverential accents, "do not
let me see you weep. You cannot believe me, but I say solemnly that, if
there be in me a single remnant of affection for any human being, it is
for you. When I consented to leave you to bear the sentence which should
have fallen on myself, sure I am that I was less basely selfish than
absurdly vain. I fancied myself so born to good fortune!--so f