on the crime and danger of his evil propensities more than he could
well bear. 'Oh!' he groaned, 'it serves me right, I know that very
well, but if my father only knew how I hate and abhor all those
things--and how I loathed them at the very time I was dragged into
them!'

'Why don't you tell him so?' I asked.

'That would make it no better.'

'It is not so bad as if you had gone into it willingly, and for your
own pleasure.'

'He would only think that another lie.'

No more could be said, for the idea of Clarence's untruthfulness and
depravity had become so deeply rooted in our father's mind that
there was little hope of displacing it, and even at the best his
manner was full of grave constrained pity. Those few words were
Clarence's first approach to confidence with me, but they led to
more, and he knew there was one person who did not believe the
defect was in the bent of his will so much as in its strength.

All the time the prospect of the counting-house in comparison with
the sea was so distasteful to him that I was anxious whenever he
went out alone, or even with Griffith, who despised the notion of,
as he said, sitting on a high stool, dealing in tea, so much that he
was quite capable of aiding and abetting in an escape from it. Two
considerations, however, held Clarence back; one, the timidity of
nature which shrank from so violent a step, and the other, the