necessity to resort to foul. The only danger would be that from which
you have so often saved him. In despair, would he not commit some
violent rash action--a street robbery, or something of the kind? He has
courage for any violence, but no longer the cool head to plan a scheme
which would not be detected. You see I can prevent my pals joining in
such risks as he may propose, or letting him (if he were to ask it) into
an adventure of their own, for they know that I am a safe adviser; they
respect me; the law has never been able to lay hold of me; and when I say
to them, 'That fellow drinks, blabs, and boasts, and would bring us all
into trouble,' they will have nothing to do with him; but I cannot
prevent his doing what he pleases out of his own muddled head, and with
his own reckless hand."

"But you will keep in his confidence, and let me know till that he
proposes!"

"Yes."

"And meanwhile, he must come to me. And this time I have more hope than
ever, since his health gives way, and he is weary of crime itself. Mr.
Cutts, come near--softly. Look-nay, nay, he cannot see you from below,
and you are screened by the blind. Look, I say, where he sits."

She pointed to a room on the ground-floor in the opposite house, where
might be dimly seen a dull red fire in a sordid grate, and a man's form,
the head pillowed upon arms that rested on a small table. On the table a
glass, a bottle.

"It is thus that his mornings pass," said Arabella Crane, with a wild
bitter pity in the tone of her voice. "Look, I say, is he formidable