Mr
Gilbert a power over the firm, I acted according to my ideas of justice.
When I was impoverished, he furnished me with the means of keeping up the
credit of the house. But for him it must have fallen. I believed that I
was solvent. Why should I hesitate to make this man secure? But it is for
this preference, which rendered my uncle's dividend comparatively nothing,
that I have been followed through my life with rancour and malevolence
unparalleled. Mark me, sir; the _mistake_, as it was called--the vital
_error_--was a deliberate fraud committed by my uncle at the outset.

He had withdrawn this heavy sum of money at the beginning--he had resolved
to keep me for my life his servant and his slave--to feast upon the
dropping sweat of my exhausted mind--to convert my heart's blood into
gold, which was his god. He hated me for my conduct towards him in my
boyhood, which he had neither forgotten nor forgiven; and his detestation
gave zest to his hellish desire of accumulating wealth at any cost. Had I
applied to _him_, had I entered into new engagements with _him_, given to
_him_ the securities which, from a notion of right, I had presented to
Gilbert--had I made over to the fiend soul as well as body, I might still
have retained his friendship, still been permitted to labour and to toil
for his aggrandizement and ease. It was Gilbert himself who revealed to me
his patron's villany. It was time for the vultures to quarrel when they
could not both fatten on my prostrate carcass; but they were bound
together by the dark doings of years, and it was only by imperfect hints
and innuendoes that I was made aware of their treachery. If proofs existed
to convict my uncle, Gilbert could not afford to produce them. The price
was life, or something short of it; but I heard enough for satisfaction.
Although I was deprived of everything that I possessed, my mind recovered
its buoyancy, and my spirit, after the first shock, grew sanguine. I had
been proclaimed an innocent and injured man, and my beloved Anna was at my
side smiling and rejoicing. In our overthrow, she beheld only the dark
storm of morning, that sometimes ushers in the glorious noon and golden
sunset. I spoke of the past with anger; she reverted to it with the
chastened sorrow of a repentant angel. I looked to the future with
distrust and apprehension, she, with a bright, abiding confidence. Never
had she appeared so happy, so contented--never had the smile remained so
con