The boy was flogged. I said to him, "Bear it; better confess,"--as he had done--"confess and be punished now. It will then be over." And I hope, by the grateful look of the poor young wretch, that with the pain, the punishment was over; that my pity helped him to endure it, so that it did not harden him, but, with a little help, he may become an honest lad yet. When I left him in his cell, I rather envied him. It now became necessary to look to my own affairs, and discover if possible, all that report alleged against me--false or true--as well as the originator of these statements. Him I at last by the merest chance discovered. My little lady, with her quick, warm feelings, must learn to forgive, as I have long ago forgiven. It was Mr. Francis Charteris. I believe still, it was less from malice premeditated, than from a mere propensity for talking, and that looseness and inaccuracy of speech which he always had--that he, when idling away his time in the debtor's ward of this gaol, repeated, probably with extempore additions, what your sister Penelope once mentioned to him concerning me--namely, that I was once about to be married, when the lady's father discovered a crime I had committed in my youth--whether dishonesty, duelling, seduction, or what, he could not say--but it was something absolutely unpardonable by an honourable man, and the marriage was forbidden. On this, all the reports against me had been grounded. After hearing this story, which one of the turnkeys whose children were down with fever, told me while watching by their bedside, begging my pardon for doing it, honest man! I went and took a long walk down the Waterloo shore, to calm myself, and consider my position. For I knew it was in vain to struggle any more. I was ruined. An innocent man might have fought on; how any one, with a clear conscience, is ever conquered by slander, or afraid of it, I cannot understand. With a clean heart, and truth on his tongue, a man ought to be as bold as a lion. I should have been; but--My love, you know. This Waterloo shore has always been a favourite haunt of mine. You once said, you should like to live by the sea; and I have never heard the ripple of the tide without thinking of you--never seen the little children playing about and digging on the sands without thinking--God help me! if one keeps silence, it is not because one does not feel the knife. "Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?" Let me stop. I will not pain you, my love, more than I can help. Besides, as I told you, the worst of my suffering is ended.