"I was never a good young man," he said cynically; "but I don't think I was worse than the generality of fellows. Give a boy money and place him amid the temptations of London, and, in nine cases out of ten, he'll go to the devil, or, if he doesn't go, it is because some lucky accident prevents him. Perhaps he has a man-of-the-world friend who advises him--or he loses his money, and has to leave the primrose path--or, he may marry a good woman, and her influence may save him from his worst enemy, himself. Ah! if we only knew the value of a good woman's love--how she can be our guardian angel, and keep us pure and honourable in the midst of temptation! But we never find out the value of such treasures till it's too late,--but there,"--with a weary sigh,--"I am sentimentalizing again! Let me go on with my story. "I lost both parents at the age of twenty, and I went to London with plenty of money and no experience whatever. Unluckily, I had no one to play the part of Mentor to my Telemachus, so I had to gain wisdom by experience, and pretty dearly I paid for it. I became a hard, cynical man of the world, for a thirteen years' residence in London was a liberal education to me in the _nil admirari_ philosophy of to-day, and then--well my money lasted longer than my health, and I became seriously ill--so bad indeed that my doctors ordered me to Malta to be cured. Oh, heavens how ironical is Fate--it was merely a case of out of the frying-pan into the fire--for my part I prefer the frying-pan. It was true the balmy air and bright skies of Malta cured me of one disease, but unfortunately I contracted another not so easily dealt with,--that of love.