“She might; but I could not risk it. Sophy is very delicate; and then there has been such entire confidence between her and her father, that it would have been almost impossible for her to keep anything from him. No; as I have brewed, so I must bake. I can only hope the best; and that, or the worst, will very soon be no longer matter for speculation. The devil of it is--I beg your pardon, I am always saying something inexcusable--but really the worst of it is, that the fact of my mother’s intention of fighting my grandfather’s will is no longer a mystery. Old Duberly’s fortune is, as all the world believes, very large; but at the same time he is known to be what is called a ‘character,’ and that his eccentricities take the turn of an extraordinary mixture of penuriousness and liberality has been often the subject both of comment and reproach with people who have nothing to do but to talk over the proceedings of their neighbours. In short--for I am sure you must be dreadfully tired of hearing me talk about myself--the world, my cursed creditors included, would be pretty well justified in believing that my worthy father-in-law would flatly refuse to pay a sum of something very like fourteen thousand pounds for a fellow whose extravagance and love of play were alone accountable for the debt; one, too, who has nothing--no, not even a ‘whistle’--to show of all the things that he has paid so dear for. Disgusting, is it not? And now that you have heard the story,--I warned you, remember, that it was a vile one,--what comfort have you to bestow on me? And can you, do you wonder at my calling the world--my world, that is--a miserable one? and is it surprising that, in spite of outward prosperity, of apparent riches, and what you call good gifts, I should sometimes almost wish to exchange my lot with that of the poorest of the poor, provided that the man in whose shoes I stood had never falsified his word, or lived as I have done and do, with a skeleton in the cupboard, of which another--one, too (forgive me, dear, for saying so), whom I not greatly trust--keeps, and must ever keep, the key?”