I was soon driven into my old ways, though in a lower
line. I went to London, just to give my reputation an airing, and when I
returned, pretty flush again, the poor Italian was dead, and Fanny was a
widow, with one boy, and enceinte with a second child. So then I sought
her again, for her mother had found her out, and was at her with her
devilish kindness; but Heaven was merciful, and took her away from
both of us: she died in giving birth to a girl, and her last words
were uttered to me, imploring me--the adventurer--the charlatan--the
good-for-nothing--to keep her child from the clutches of her own mother.
Well, sir, I did what I could for both the children; but the boy was
consumptive, like his father, and sleeps at Pere-la-Chaise. The girl is
here--you shall see her some day. Poor Fanny! if ever the devil will
let me, I shall reform for her sake. Meanwhile, for her sake I must get
grist for the mill. My story is concluded, for I need not tell you all
of my pranks--of all the parts I have played in life. I have never been
a murderer, or a burglar, or a highway robber, or what the law calls a
thief. I can only say, as I said before, I have lived upon my wits, and
they have been a tolerable capital on the whole. I have been an actor,
a money-lender, a physician, a professor of animal magnetism (that was
lucrative till it went out of fashion, perhaps it will come in again); I
have been a lawyer, a house-agent, a dealer in curiosities and china; I
have kept a hotel; I have set up a weekly newspaper; I have seen almost
every city in Europe, and made acquaintance with some of its gaols; but
a man who has plenty of brains generally falls on his legs."

"And your father?" said Philip; and here he spoke to Gawtrey of the
conversation he had overheard in the churchyard, but on which a scruple
of natural delicacy had hitherto kept him silent.

"Well, now," said his host, while a slight blush rose to his cheeks,
"I will tell you, that though to my father's sternness and avarice I
attribute many of my faults, I yet always had a sort of love for him;
and when in London I accidentally heard that he was growing blind, and
living with an artful old jade of a housekeeper, who might send him to
rest with a dose of magnesia the night after she had coaxed him to make
a will in her favour. I sought him out--and--but you say you heard what
passed."

"Yes; and I heard him also call you by name, when it was too late, and I
saw the tears