Many times she went
out with the intention of selling it, but her heart could not resolve
to do so, and she returned penitent and sorrowful.
Meanwhile, Edoardo was involving himself more and more in debt.
Assailed by creditors on one side, and drawn to the gaming-table by
desire and necessity on the other; menaced with a prison, threatened
to be denounced to his father, stupid from want of rest, midnight
revelling, and anxiety, he one day presented himself before Sophia in
a state so different from usual, that the poor girl was terrified at
him. Whither, Edoardo, has departed the beauty, the freshness of your
youthful years?--whither your simplicity of heart? Buried, buried
amid dice and cards. Sophia no longer doubted that Edoardo gambled,
that he had given himself up to a life worthy of reprehension; but
she was disposed to pardon him, to hope that he would repent and
turn to better counsels. But what made her tremble was the hoarse and
desperate accent in which he told her that he had need of money, that
he was, hard pressed by necessity, obliged to pay ten thousand
_lire_.
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