Will Charlotte be told that she is the reverend intestate's next of kin?
These are questions which I ask myself as I sit in the stillness of my room at the Magpie, scribbling this wretched diary of mine, while the church clock booms three solemn strokes in the distance.
O, why did not the reverend intestate marry his housekeeper, and make a will, like other honest citizens, and leave my Charlotte to walk the obscure byways of honest poverty with me?
I do believe that I could have been honest; I do believe that I could have been brave and true and steadfast for her dear sake.

But it is the office of man to propose, while the Unseen disposes.

Perhaps such a youth as mine admits of no redemption.

I have written circulars for Horatio Paget.

I have been the willing remorseless tool of a man who never eats his dinner without inflicting a wrong upon his fellow-creatures.