See him, at dawn, in deep slumber! his face is sallow, his lips are dry,
his chest heaves nervously as he breathes hard. It is a bad sleep; it is
the sleep of bad children, to whom the fiend comes, knowing that the
older they grow the more surely are they his own.
This is not, surely, the bashful young man who started at the phantom of
his mother, and sinned reluctantly. Aye! but those who do wrong after
much admonishment are wickeder than those who obey the first bad
impulse. He is ten times more cast away who thinks and sins than he who
only sins and does not think.
Ralph Flare was one of your reasoning villains. His conscience was not a
better nature rising up in the man, and saying "this is wrong." It was
not conscience at all; it was only a fear. Far down as Suzette might be,
she never could have been unfeeling, unmerciful as he. It is a bad
character to set in black and white, yet you might ask old Terrapin or
any shrewd observer what manner of man was Ralph, and they would say,
"So-so-ish, a little sentimental, spooney likewise; but a good fellow, a
good fellow!" And more curious than all, Suzette said so too.
He rose at daylight, and dressed and looked at himself in the glass. He
felt that this would not do. His revenge had turned upon himself.
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