the capital of his daughter's fortune, pitifully small though it was compared to my expectations, my first idea was to send half of that sum to you. But—but—I was living with those who thought nothing so silly as a good intention—nothing so bad as a good action. That mocking she-devil, Gabrielle, too! Then the witch's spell of that dd green table! Luck against one—wait! double the capital ere you send the half. Luck with one—how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still, when I did, I said ' Life is long; I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, Basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all this must seem to you!"
"No," said Waife, feebly—and his hand drooped till it touched Jasper's bended shoulder, but, at the touch, recoiled as with an electric spasm.
"So, as you say, you found me at Paris. I told you where I had placed the child, not conceiving that Arabella would part with her, or you desire to hamper yourself with an encumbrance—nay, I took for granted that you would find a home, as before, with some old friend or country cousin; but fancying that your occasional visits to her might comfort you, since it seemed to please you so much when I said she lived. Thus we parted—you, it seems, only anxious to save that child from ever falling into my hands or those of Gabrielle Desmarets; I hastening to forget all but the riotous life round me, till—"
"Till you came back to England to rob from me the smile of the only face that I knew would never wear contempt, and to tell the good man with whom I thought she had so safe a shelter that I was a convicted robber, by whose very love her infancy was sullied. Oh Jasper! Jasper!"
"I never said that—never thought of saying it. Arabella Crane did so, with the reckless woman-will, to gain her object. But I did take the child from you. Why? Partly because I needed money so much that I would have sold a hecatomb of children for half what I was offered to bind the girl to a service that could not be very dreadful, since yourself had first placed her there—and partly because you had shrunk, it seems, from appealing to old friends; you were living, like myself, from hand to mouth; what could that child be to you but a drag and a bother?"
"And you will tell me, I suppose," said Waife, with an incredulous bitter irony, that seemed to wither himself in venting it, so did his whole frame recoil and shrink—" you will tell me
