oment fail you.--The cards turning up as if to
your wish--the dice rolling, it almost seemed, at your wink--it was
rather your look than the touch of your cue that sent the ball into
the pocket. You seemed to have fortune in chains, and a man of less
honour would have been almost suspected of helping his luck by a
little art.--You won every bet; and the instant that you were
interested, one might have named the winning horse--it was always
that which you were to gain most by.--You never held out your piece
but the game went down--and then the women!--with face, manners,
person, and, above all, your tongue--what wild work have you made
among them!--Good heaven! and have you had the old sword hanging
over your head by a horsehair all this while?--Has your rank been
doubtful?--Your fortune unsettled?--And your luck, so constant in
every thing else, has that, as well as your predominant influence
with the women, failed you, when you wished to form a connexion for
life, and when the care of your fortune required you to do
so?--Etherington, I am astonished!--The Mowbray scrape I always
thought an inconvenient one, as well as the quarrel with this same
Tyrrel, or Martigny; but I was far from guessing the complicated
nature of your perplexities.

"But I must not run on in a manner which, though it relieves my own
marvelling mind, cannot be very pleasant to you. Enough, I look on
my obligations to you as more light to be borne, now I have some
chance of repaying them to a certain extent; but, even were the full
debt paid, I would remain as much attached to you as ever. It is
your friend who speaks, Etherington; and, if he offers his advice in
somewhat plain language, do not, I entreat you, suppose that your
confidence has encouraged an offensive familiarity, but consider me
as one who, in a weighty matter, writes plainly, to avoid the least
chance of misconstruction.

"Etherington, your conduct hitherto has resembled anything rather
than the coolness and judgment which are so peculiarly your own
when you choose to display them. I pass over the masquerade of your
marriage--it was a boy's trick, which could hardly have availed you
much, even if successful; for what sort of a wife would you have
acquired, had this same Clara Mowbray proved willing to have
accepted the change which you had