He has no virtues; and yet he would have been a thousand times worse, if you had not come into his life.

He had in him the seeds of trouble, the sproutings of shame, for even in the first days of his love there in Dublin he would not restrain himself.

He drank, he played cards, he fought and went with bad company--not women, never that; but he kept the company of those through whom he came at last to punishment for manslaughter.
Yet, without you, who can tell what he might have been?
He might have fallen so low that not the wealth of ten thousand treasure- boxes could give him even the appearance of honesty.

And now he offers you what you cannot accept--can never accept--a love as deep as the life from which he came; a love that would throttle the world for you, that would force the doors of hell to bring you what you want.
What do you want?
I know not.

Perhaps you have inherited the vast property to which you were the heir.