"As long as I had any money left, I paid what I lost; then I ran into debt to the masters of the different clubs, and borrowed money of such of my acquaintance as were kind or imprudent enough to lend it. To others I lost large sums on credit, under promises to pay them on a future day. When the day arrived and found me unable to meet my engagements, I was induced to give bills to my creditors for other and distant days. Again those days came, and again they found me insolvent. I will not, I need not, go through all the miserable details of the difficulties in which I was entangled, of the humiliating excuses I had to make, and the more humiliating threats and reproaches I had to endure. It is enough to say that, with desperate infatuation, I made a solemn promise to my creditors to satisfy them all on the first day of the ensuing month, and on the fulfilment of that promise it depended, whether my character as a gentleman was still preserved or irretrievably lost. Ellen, I cannot attempt to describe to you what I suffered at that time. The wrestling with an impossibility, the struggle after what was unattainable, the incapability of resigning myself to what seemed inevitable, the powerless rage, the smarting pride, the agonised self-reproach; it was dreadful, and no one to speak to, or turn to..." "And why, in the name of Heaven, why did you not appeal to my uncle? Why did you not speak to Edward Middleton?" An expression of sudden pain and a burning flush spread over Henry's countenance at this question. After a moment's hesitation he said, "I must tell you _all_, though to tell you this gives me a pang which would almost atone for any degree of guilt. You must know, then, that it was at Oxford that I acquired a taste for gambling, and that there, I ran in some measure the same course of imprudence, and went through the same suffering that I have just described to you, except that the sums which I lost amounted to hundreds instead of thousands. Edward, at that time, observed that something weighed on my spirits, and easily drew from me a confession of my folly, and my embarrassments. After lecturing me for some days on the subject, he brought me a draught for the amount of what I had lost, which he had obtained for me from Mr. Middleton, but only on the condition that I would give them both my most solemn word of honour that I would never play again. Mr. Middleton's letter was not only stern, it was also contemptuous; and had I then been able to devise any mode of extricating myself from my difficulties, I would have refused the money and the promise exacted from me; but it was vain to seek for any such; and with feelings more wounded than grateful, I gave the promise required. _How_ I kept it, you have seen; and now you can understand that I would sooner have fled to America, and never shown my face in England again, than have turned to Mr. Middleton for aid or assistance. To my father it would have been useless to apply; he has, as you