"I know that you are prejudiced against him; and that's the reason you suspect him, and can't be civil to him. You think he wouldn't do me a kindness without a motive?" "I am sure he wouldn't," said Lizzie firmly; "and I am sure of another thing--that you, in your heart, do not like him. I wish you had never seen him." "I wish I hadn't," groaned Alfred. "And yet you have told me he was your best friend, Alfred." "Don't badger me, Liz, for God's sake I am almost torn to pieces as it is. You ought to comfort me, and try and make things better for me." "Ah, if I could! If I knew how to, how gladly would I! Why not confide entirely in me, Alf? Who can have a better right to your confidence that the girl that loves you with all her heart and soul?--as I do, Alf, my dear! Come now, tell me all. Who knows? Something good may come of it. What's your trouble?" "Money." "Yes, I know that; and that you owe Mr. Sheldrake more than you can pay. Tell me how it all came about, dear." So by many little endearing ways she coaxed him to tell her the whole of his miserable story. How, excited by the glowing accounts in the papers of the easy manner in which fortunes could be made on the turf, he had commenced to bet, a few shillings at the time at first; how he attended races, and how one unfortunate day he won a few pounds, and came home flushed with the idea that he had found the philosopher's stone; how little by little he had been led on, with the inevitable result of losing more than he could afford; how on one important race, when the prophets and tipsters in every one of the papers declared--in such glowing and confident terms that it was impossible to resist the temptation of making a bold plunge for fortune--that a certain horse could not possibly lose, he had used money which did not belong to him; and how the horse came in last instead of first. "I had to make up that money, of course," he continued; "I had to get it somehow; and I did get it--never mind in what manner. You can imagine what I suffered, Liz! I thought I had fortune in my hands; and I had, but I was tricked out of it--for the whole affair was a swindle. The horse was never intended to win; and they swore it couldn't lose." He derived comfort from the confession he was making; he took no blame to himself; and he did not, when he reached this point, tell her the story of the theft from the iron box. Then he went on to narrate how he had made Mr. Sheldrake's acquaintance, and how that gentleman had lent him money from time to time, and how misfortune continued to pursue him. He would have had his pockets filled with money over and over again if it had not been that things invariably went wrong with him just at the critical moment.