Knowledge of his own perilous weakness of brain, as a drinker, rendered him thus uncharacteristically temperate and self-restrained, so far as indulgence in strong liquor was concerned.

His first glass of grog comforted him; his second agreeably excited him; his third (as he knew by former experience) reached his weak point on a sudden, and robbed him treacherously of his sobriety.
Three or four times a week, for nearly a month, had he now enjoyed his unhallowed nocturnal rambles with perfect impunity--keeping them secret even from his friend Mr.Blyth, whose toleration, expansive as it was, he well knew would not extend to viewing leniently such offenses as haunting night-houses at two in the morning, while his father believed him to be safe in bed.

But one mitigating circumstance can be urged in connection with the course of misconduct which he was now habitually following.

He had still grace enough left to feel ashamed of his own successful duplicity, when he was in his mother's presence.
But circumstances unhappily kept him too much apart from Mrs.Thorpe, and so prevented the natural growth of a good feeling, which flourished only under her influence: and which, had it been suffered to arrive at maturity, might have led to his reform.

All day he was at the office, and his irksome life there only inclined him to look forward with malicious triumph to the secret frolic of the night.