midnight
-- because you had asked me if I had wherewithal about me on which to live meanwhile ; and I , to save you from emptying your own purse , said , ` Yes ' ; showed you some gold , and pressed on you the bank-note , which I said I could not want -- to go , in small part , towards my debts ; it was a childish , inconsistent wish to please you : and you seemed so pleased to take it as a proof that I cared for you . '' `` For me ! -- no , no ; for honour -- for honour -- for honour ! I thought you cared for honour ; and the proof of that care was , thrusting into these credulous hands the share of your midnight plunder ! '' `` Sir , '' resumed Jasper , persisting in the same startling combination of feeling , gentler and more reverential than could have been supposed to linger in his breast , and of the moral obtuseness that could not , save by vanishing glimpses , distinguish between crime and its consequences -- between dishonour and detection -- `` Sir , I declare that I never conceived that I was exposing you to danger ; nay , I meant , out of the money I had taken , to replace to you what you were about to raise , as soon as I could invent some plausible story of having earned it honestly . Stupid notions and clumsy schemes , as I now look back on them ; but , as you say , I had not long left boyhood , and , fancying myself deep and knowing , was raw in the craft I had practised . _ Basta , basta , basta !