“Prayers!” said the girl with a mocking laugh.  “The prayers of the wicked never come up before the throne of God.  My prayers would sound in my own ears like blasphemy.  How would they sound in the ears of God?”

“Don’t talk in that way, Mary; you make my flesh creep,” said Mathews.  “I have never said a prayer since I was a boy at my mother’s knee, and that was before Mary was born.  Had mother lived I should not have been what I now am; and poor Mary—.”  He paused; there was a touch of tenderness in the ruffian’s tone and manner.  The remembrance of that mother’s love seemed the only holy thing that had ever been impressed upon his mind; and sunk even as he was in guilt, and hardened in crime, had he followed its suggestions it would have led him back to God, and made him the protector, instead of the base vendor of his sister’s honor.

“What is the use of dwelling upon the past?” said Godfrey, pettishly.  “We were all very good little boys once.  At least my father always told me so; and by the strange contradictions which abound in human nature, I suppose that that was the very reason which made me grow up a bad man.  And bad men we both are, Mathews, in the world’s acceptation, and we may as well make the most we can of our acquired reputation.”

“Now I would like to know,” said Mathews, gloomily, “if you have ever felt a qualm of conscience in your life?”

“I do not believe in a future state.  Let that answer you.”

“Do you never fear the dark?” returned Mathews, glancing stealthily around.  “Never feel that eyes are looking upon you—­cold, glassy eyes, that peer into your very soul—­eyes which are not of this world, and which no other eyes can see?  Snuff the candles, Mary.  The room looks as dismal as a vault.”

Godfrey burst into a loud laugh.  “If I were troubled with such ocular demonstrations I would wear spectacles.  By Jove!  Bill Mathews, waking or sleeping, I never was haunted by an evil spirit worse than yourself.  But here’s Skinner at last!  Fetch a bottle of brandy and some glasses to yon empty table, Mary.  I must try to win back from him what I lost last night.”

CHAPTER XVII.

    Oh! speak to me of her I love,
      And I shall think I hear
    The voice whose melting tones, above
      All music, charms mine ear.—­S.M.

Whilst Godfrey Hurdlestone was rapidly traversing the broad road that leads down to the gates of death, Anthony was regaining his peace of mind in the quiet abode of domestic love.  Day after day the young cousins whiled away the charmed hours in delightful converse.  They wandered hand in hand through green quiet lanes, and along sunny paths, talking of the beloved.  Clary felt no jealous envy mar the harmony of her dove-like soul, as she listened to Anthony’s rapturous details of the hours he had spent with Juliet, his poetical descriptions of her lovely countenance and easy figure.  Nay, she often pointed out graces which he had omitted, and repeated, with her musical voice, sweet strains of song by her young friend, to him unknown.