"And," continued Jasper, "remembering how you once loved me--with what self-sacrifice you proved that love--it is with a bitter grudge against that girl that I see her thus take that place in your affection which was mine,--and you so indignant against me if I even presume to approach her. What! I have the malignity of a devil because I would not quietly lie down in yonder kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of those whom your daintier thief disclains; spies into unguarded areas, or cowardly skulkers by blind walls; while in the paltry girl, who you say is so well provided for, I see the last and sole resource which may prevent you from being still more degraded, still more afflicted by your son." "What is it you want? Even if Sophy were in your power, Darrell would not be more disposed to enrich or relieve you. He will never believe your tale, nor deign even to look into its proofs." "He might at last," said Jasper, evasively. "Surely with all that wealth, no nearer heir than a remote kinsman in the son of a beggared spendthrift by a linendraper's daughter--he should need a grandchild more than you do; yet the proofs you speak of convinced yourself; you believe my tale." "Believe--yes, for that belief was everything in the world, to me! Ah, remember how joyously, when my term of sentence expired, I hastened to seek you at Paris, deceived by the rare letters with which you had deigned to cheer me--fondly dreaming that, in expiating your crime, I should have my reward in your redemption--should live to see you honoured, honest, good--live to think your mother watched us from heaven with a smile on both--and that we should both join her at last--you purified by my atonement! Oh, and when I saw you so sunken, so hardened, exulting in vice as in a glory--bravo and partner in a gambler's hell-- or, worse still, living on the plunder of miserable women, even the almsman of that vile Desmarets--my son, my son, my lost Lizzy's son blotted out of my world for ever!--then, then I should have died if you had not said, boasting of the lie which had wrung the gold from Darrell, 'But the child lives still.' Believe you--oh, yes, yes--for in that belief something was still left to me to cherish, to love, to live for!"