“And so may you,” I thought.  My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind:  he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken as well as imagined —

“Yes, yes, you are right,” said he; “I have plenty of faults of my own:  I know it, and I don’t wish to palliate them, I assure you.  God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself.  I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since:  but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you —­ wiser —­ almost as stainless.  I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory.  Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure —­ an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment:  is it not?”

“How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?”

“All right then; limpid, salubrious:  no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle.  I was your equal at eighteen —­ quite your equal.  Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better kind, and you see I am not so.  You would say you don’t see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language).  Then take my word for it, —­ I am not a villain:  you are not to suppose that —­ not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life.  Do you wonder that I avow this to you?  Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances’ secrets:  people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations.”

“How do you know? —­ how can you guess all this, sir?”

“I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary.  You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should —­ so I should; but you see I was not.  When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool:  I turned desperate; then I degenerated.  Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he:  I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level.  I wish I had stood firm —­ God knows I do!  Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.”