t? He answered that he knew it well;
but still pleaded a promise of inviolable secrecy as to his
hiding-place. This conduct justly exasperated me, and I treated him with
the severity which he deserved. I am half ashamed to confess the
excesses of my passion; I even went so far as to strike him. He bore my
insults with the utmost patience. No doubt the young villain is well
instructed in his lesson. He knows that he may safely defy my power.
From threats I descended to entreaties. I even endeavoured to wind the
truth from him by artifice. I promised him a part of the debt if he
would enable me to recover the whole. I offered him a considerable
reward if he would merely afford me a clue by which I might trace him to
his retreat; but all was insufficient. He merely put on an air of
perplexity and shook his head in token of non-compliance."

Such was my friend's account of this interview. His suspicions were
unquestionably plausible; but I was disposed to put a more favourable
construction on Mervyn's behaviour. I recollected the desolate and
penniless condition in which I found him, and the uniform complacency
and rectitude of his deportment for the period during which we had
witnessed it. These ideas had considerable influence on my judgment, and
indisposed me to follow the advice of my friend, which was to turn him
forth from my doors that very night.

My wife's prepossessions were still more powerful advocates of this
youth. She would vouch, she said, before any tribunal, for his
innocence; but she willingly concurred with me in allowing him the
continuance of our friendship on no other condition than that of a
disclosure of the truth. To entitle ourselves to this confidence we were
willing to engage, in our turn, for the observance of secrecy, so far
that no detriment should accrue from this disclosure to himself or his
friend.

Next morning, at breakfast, our guest appeared with a countenance less
expressive of embarrassment than on the last evening. His attention was
chiefly engaged by his own thoughts, and little was said till the
breakfast was removed. I then reminded him of the incidents of the
former day, and mentioned that the uneasiness which thence arose to us
had rather been increased than diminished by time.

"It is in your power, my young friend," continued I, "to add still more
to this uneasiness, or to take it entirely away. I had no personal
acquaintance with Thomas Welbeck. I have been informed by o