“No, child, no!--I loathe--I detest the thought of help. They denied it me while it was yet time. They left me to starve or to rot in gaol, or to hang myself! They left me like a dog, and like a dog I will die! I would not have one iota taken from the justice--the deadly and dooming weight of my dying curse.” Here violent spasms broke on the speech of the sufferer; and when, by medicine and his daughter’s attentions, he had recovered, he said, in a lower and calmer key:--“Is all quiet below, Constance? Are all in bed? The landlady--the servants--our fellow-lodgers?” “All, my father.” “Ay; then I shall die happy. Thank Heaven, you are my only nurse and attendant. I remember the day when I was ill after one of their rude debauches. Ill!--a sick headache--a fit of the spleen--a spoiled lapdog’s illness! Well: they wanted me that night to support one of their paltry measures--their parliamentary measures. And I had a prince feeling my pulse, and a duke mixing my draught, and a dozen earls sending their doctors to me. I was of use to them then! Poor me! Read me that note, Constance--Flamborough’s note. Do you hesitate? Read it, I say!” Constance trembled and complied. “My dear Vernon, “I am really au desespoir to hear of your melancholy state;--so sorry I cannot assist you: but you know my embarrassed circumstances. By the by, I saw his Royal Highness yesterday. ‘Poor Vernon!’ said he; ‘would a hundred pounds do him any good?’ So we don’t forget you, mon cher. Ah! how we missed you at the Beefsteak! Never shall we know again so glorious a bon vivant. You would laugh to hear L---- attempting to echo your old jokes. But time presses: I must be off to the House. You know what a motion it is! Would to Heaven you were to bring it on instead of that ass T----. Adieu! I wish I could come and see you; but it would break my heart. Can I send you any books from Hookham’s? “Yours ever, “FLAMBOROUGH.” “This is the man whom I made Secretary of State,” said Vernon. “Very well!--oh, it’s very well,--very well indeed. Let me kiss thee, my girl. Poor Constance! You will have good friends when I am dead! they will be proud enough to be kind to Vernon’s daughter, when Death has shown them that Vernon is a loss. You are very handsome. Your poor mother’s eyes and hair--my father’s splendid brow and lip; and your figure, even now so stately! They will court you: you will have lords and great men enough at your feet; but you will never forget this night, nor the agony of your father’s death-bed face, and the brand they have burned in his heart. And now, Constance, give me the Bible in which you read to me this morning: that will do:--stand away from the light and fix your eyes on mine, and listen as if your soul were in your ears.