She spoke with unusual severity, for her soul recoiled at his aspect: she saw nothing in it to soften her feelings of indignation. "I have lived," he answered. "How?" "How! as others of my temper have lived. It was not my fault that I was born with an invincible passion for enjoyment. I did not make myself. If pleasure be but the forerunner of satiety--if life be but a cheat--if delight be but the precursor of misery--a delusion of flattering lies,--_I_ did not arrange the system. Why was virtue made so hard, and self-indulgence so enticing? I did not contrive the scheme." "Such excuses," the lady replied, "the honest consciousness within us rejects; such as your own inner conscience at the very moment you utter them disclaims. She who is gone--a broken-hearted victim of another's errors--hoped better things when she exhausted almost her last breath in prayers for you." "Prayers!" in a tone that spoke volumes. "Yes, prayers." "What is become of my other daughter?--I want to go to _her_." "She died, I believe, about twelve months ago." "Then I am alone in the world?" "You have no children now." "Are you going to turn me out into the street?" he suddenly asked, after a short silence. "The rules of this house--which is dedicated to the assistance of sick and helpless women--will not admit of your remaining." "I am going. You will hear of me next as one past recovery; picked up out of some kennel by the police. You would have done better not to have restored me. I should have died quietly." "But without repentance." "Repentance!" he said fiercely. "Repent while my whole soul is writhing with agony? Ella! Ella! if I could only have kept my Ella, she would have tended me--she would have soothed me--she would have worked for me." "Yes," said the lady, "she would have done this, and much more--but God has taken her; has rescued her from your heartless selfishness." To herself she added--for her heart was glowing with indignation--"Even in this supreme moment, he thinks of nothing but of himself." "She would have been more gentle with me than you are," he said, with a half-reproachful sigh. "Yes, yes--she would have felt only for you--_I_ happen to feel for her." "Which I never did." "Never--" "You say true," said he, musing. CHAPTER THE SECOND. "Julian Winstanley----" "He who won the steeple-chase yesterday? Who, in the name of goodness, is Julian Winstanley? A name of some pretension; yet nobody seems to know where he came from." "Oh dear, that is quite a mistake. I beg your pardon--_everybody_ knows where he came from. This bird of gay plumage was hatched in a dusky hole and corner of the city; where his grandfather made a fabulous fortune by gambling in the funds." "He is as handsome a young fellow as ever was hatched from a muckworm."