“You would never believe, you who are so young, so ignorant of the world’s wickedness, what the temptations are which beset a man. Pshaw! I was a boy when I began life in London, and there were no bounds to my extravagance, no limits to what you in your unstained purity would call my guilt. I sometimes think that had my poor father lived, or even if I had possessed a dear mother whose heart would have been made sore by the knowledge of my offences, I _might_ (God knows, however; perhaps I was bad in grain) have sinned less heavily, and have been this day unburdened by the weight of _shame_ that oppresses me both by night and day. Darling Honor!--you sweet warm-hearted child! why were there no loving eyes like yours to fill with tears, in the days gone by, for me? In those days only guilty women loved, or seemed to love; and not a single good one prayed for or advised me. And so--God forgive me!--I went on from bad to worse! For _them_--for those worthless creatures whose names should not be even mentioned in your hearing--I expended, weak vain idiot that I was, thousands upon thousands, which, being under age, I raised from Jews at a rate so usurious that it could scarcely be believed how they could dare to ask, or any greenhorn be such a fool and gull as to accept, the terms. And then, reckless and desperate, _afraid_ to confide in the mother who had never shown me a mother’s tenderness, I played--I betted on the turf--I--in short, there is no madness, no insane extravagance, of which, in my recklessness and almost despair, I have not been guilty. But the worst is yet to come. You remember that I bought Rough Diamond for a large sum of your husband. I gave him a bill at six months’ date, renewable, for the amount; and John--he behaved as well as man could do, I must say that--promised that it should remain a secret that the colt was mine. Well, some little time before my marriage--that marriage being a matter to me of absolute necessity--old Duberly grew anxious and uneasy at my being so much at the Paddocks. He had an idea, poor dear old fellow, that I could only be there on account of matters connected in some way with racing. So he wrote to my mother, of all people in the world, for an explanation, and she naturally enough referred him to me. Then, Honor, came the moment of temptation. I _could not_--I positively could not, with my expectations, my almost certainty, and John Beacham’s too, of Rough Diamond’s powers--part with him to any man living. So--it was an atrocious thing to do; I felt it at the moment, and Heaven knows I have not changed my opinion since--I allowed Mr. Duberly--allowed! humbug!--I told him that the horse was not mine, and, liar that I was, that I had nothing to do with the turf!”