“Oh! some.  But for every compunction I have a thousand desperate determinations.  Were you ever in love, Judge?”

“Yes, I have been in love, such love as yours, and that is why I am what I am now.”

As he uttered these words, he lifted the glass which his hand had been toying with, drained it to the dregs, fixed his eyes on David once more, and after regarding him a moment with a look of pity, said slowly and solemnly:  “Young man, I am about to give you good advice.  You smile?  No wonder!  But I beg you to listen to me.  Sometimes a shipwrecked sailor makes the best captain, for he knows the force of the tempest.  I have no conscience for myself, but some unaccountable emotion impels me to bid you abandon this project.  Somehow, as I look at you, I cannot bear to have you become what I am.  You seem so young and innocent that I would like to have you stay as you are.  I wish to save you.  How strange it is.  When I look at you, I seem to behold myself as I was at your age.”

As he spoke these words the whole expression of his countenance altered, and faint traces of an almost extinguished manhood appeared.  It was as if beauty, sunk below the horizon, had been thrown up in a mirage.

So tender an appeal would have broken a heart like David’s, except for the madness of illicit love.

“Judge!” he cried, striking the table with his fist, “I did not come here for advice, I came for help.  I am determined to have this woman.  She is mine by virtue of my desire and my capacity to acquire her!  I must have her!  I will have her, by fair means or foul.  And, Judge, in this case, the foulest means are fair.  What seems an act of injustice is in reality an act of mercy.  You know her husband, and you know as well as I do that her life with him will be her ruin.  You know that the complacency with which she once regarded him has already turned to disgust, and that it is only a single step from disgust to hate and another from hate to murder.  She will kill him some day!  She cannot help it.  It is human nature and if she doesn’t I will!  Come now, Judge, you will help me, won’t you?”

A cynical smile wreathed itself around the mouth of the old roue.  In his debauched nature, the oil of sympathy had long ago been exhausted.  This was a last despairing flicker.  A wick cannot burn alone.

“Help you?” he said languidly.  “Oh, yes, I will help you.  There is no use trying to save you.  You are only another moth!  You want the fire, and you will have it!  You will burn your wings off as millions have done before you and as millions will do after you.  What then?  Wings are made to be burned!  I burned mine.  Probably if I had another pair I would burn them also.  It is as useless to moralize to a lover as to a tiger.  I am a fool to waste my breath on you.  Let us get down to business.  You say that she loves you, and that she will be glad to learn that she is free?”

“I do! her heart is on our side.  She will believe you, easily!”