I don't blame you. But I
think, Sir--I think I _might_ make her like me, Sir. They come at last,
sometimes, to like those that love them so--so _desperately: that_ may
not be for me, 'tis true. I only ask to plead my own sad cause. I only
want to see her--gracious Heaven--but to see her--to show her how I was
wronged--to tell her she can make me what she will--an honourable, pure,
self-denying, devoted man, or leave me in the dark, alone, with nothing
for it but to wrap my cloak about my head, and leap over the precipice.'
'Captain Devereux, why will you doubt me? I've spoken the truth. I have
already said I must not give your message; and you are not to suppose I
dislike you, because I would fain have your faults mended.'
'Faults! have I? To be sure I have. So have _you, more,_ Sir, and
_worse_ than I, maybe,' cried Devereux, wild again; 'and you come here
in your spiritual pride to admonish and to lecture, and to _insult_ a
miserable man, who's better, perhaps, than yourself. You've heard ill of
me? you hear I sometimes drink maybe a glass too much--who does not? you
can drink a glass yourself, Sir; drink more, and show it less than I
maybe; and you listen to every damned slander that any villain, to whose
vices and idleness you pander with what you call your alms, may be
pleased to invent, and you deem yourself charitable; save us from such
charity! _Charitable_, and you refuse to deliver my miserable message:
hard-hearted Pharisee!'
It is plain poor Captain Devereux was not quite himself--bitter, fierce,
half-mad, and by no means so polite as he ought to have been.
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