self unhurt; nay, pleased at your destruction--So your
words mean. Why, tell it to the world: I am too poor to find a
friend in't.

_Bev._ A friend! What's he? I had a friend.

_Stu._ And have one still.

_Bev._ Ay; I'll tell you of this friend. He found me happiest of the
happy; fortune and honour crowned me; and love and peace lived in my
heart. One spark of folly lurked there; That too he found; and by
deceitful breath, blew it to flames that have consumed me. This
friend were You to Me.

_Stu._ A little more perhaps--The friend who gave his all to save
you; and not succeeding, chose ruin with you. But no matter--I have
undone you, and am a villain.

_Bev._ No; I think not. The villains are within.

_Stu._ What villains?

_Bev._ Dawson and the rest--We have been dupes to sharpers.

_Stu._ How know you this? I have had doubts, as well as You; yet
still as fortune changed, I blushed at my own thoughts. But You have
proofs, perhaps?

_Bev._ Ay, damned ones. Repeated losses: night after night, and no
reverse. Chance has no hand in this.

_Stu._ I think more charitably; yet I am peevish in my nature, and
apt to doubt. The world speaks fairly of this Dawson; so does it of
the rest. We have watched them closely too. But 'tis a right usurped
by losers, to think the winners knaves. We'll have more manhood in
us.

_Bev._ I know not what to think. This night has stung me to the
quick--blasted my reputation too. I have bound my honour to these
vipers; played meanly upon credit, till I tired them; and now they
shun me, to rifle one another. What's to be done?

_Stu._ Nothing. My counsels have been fatal.

_Bev._ By heaven! I'll not survive this shame--Traitor! 'tis You
have brought it on me. (_Taking hold of him._) Shew me the means to
save me, or I'll commit a murder here, and next upon myself.

_Stu._ Why, do it then, and rid me of ingratitude.

_Bev._ Prithee, forgive this language--I speak I know not what. Rage
and despair are in my heart, and hurry me to madness. My home is
horror to me--I'll not return to't. Speak quickly; tell me, if in
this wreck of fortune, one hope remains? Name it, and be my
oracle.

_Stu._ To vent your curses on--You have bestowed them liberally.
Take your own counsel: and should a desperate hope present itself,
'twill suit your desperate fortune. I'll not advise you.

_Bev._ What hope? By heaven! I'll catch at it, however desperate.
I am so sunk in misery, it cannot lay me low