Part 61 (2/2)

And to live rejected, in poverty and wretchedness, pointed at and pretended to be despised by the knaves and fools hom the world is filled, is a condition to which I will never submit

'Consequently, the property of which I have possessed myself I am in either case determined to use every effort to keep If I am suffered to keep it quietly,If contention must come, we must then have a trial of skill upon the opposite system'

I listened to this discourse, attentive to every sentence, anxious for the next, and agitated by various contradictory emotions I saw the difficulties of the supposed case; and knew not what to answer, or what to advise That a man like this should becoht that consoled and expanded the heart But that it should depend upon so i a claiave him, to property in dispute, was a most painful alternative My sensations were of hope suddenly kindled, and as suddenly killed

After waiting some time without any reply from me, he added 'Let us suppose, Mr Trevor, a whie, coincidence between the ry and myself I mean Wakefield What if he felt some of the sober propensities tohich I find a kind of a call in myself?'

'He is not to be trusted In him it would be artifice: or at least nobody would believe it could be any thing else'

'Mark nohat chance there is, in a world like this, for a man whom it has once deemed criood, what resource has he but to associate with the wicked?'

'He that, with the fairest see tih he had deceived before, he noas honest, he that shall yet again and again repeat his acts of infa to trust his happiness to such keeping'

'I find what I am to expect from you The very same will be said of me'

'No: you have not been equally unprincipled, and vile'

'These are coarse or at least harsh terms However, I take them to myself; and affirm that I have'

'How can you make such an affirmation? How do you know?'

'A man may calculate on probabilities; and this is a moment in which I do not wish to conceal the full esti therefore, seriously and speaking to the best of ment, as culpable as Wakefield, let my course of life hereafter be what it will, I find I am to expect no credit for sincerity from you?'

'You do not know Wakefield'

'Neither it see in your countenance, in your conversation, and in the free and undisguised honesty even of your vices, that a otten that, though I can be open and honest, I can be artful? Do you not remember billiards, hazard, and Bath?'

'Yes: but Wakefield would be incapable of the qualities ofWith you I feel nani you to my heart But Wakefield! who made women and men alike his prey; to whose devilish arts the virtue and happiness of an a, woman were sacrificed; and the life of one of the first of ered; that he should resemble you, and especially that he should resemble you with your present inclinations, oh! would that were possible!'

'There is generosity in the wish It denotes a power in you of allaying one of the e'

'It is a spirit I own to which I have been too subject; and which I could wish to exorcise for ever'

'Put it to the test Let us suppose you should discover as ine you do in me'

'I should then put _his he has done Miss Wilmot!'

'What if you should find him already so disposed?'

'In!'