totally different system, and his existence in her society a new
and another life. Her very purity refined the passion which raged even
in his exhausted mind. Gleams of virtue, morning streaks of duty, broke
upon the horizon of his hitherto clouded soul; an obscure suspicion
of the utter worthlessness of his life whispered in his hollow ear;
he darkly felt that happiness was too philosophical a system to be the
result or the reward of impulse, however unbounded, and that principle
alone could create and could support that bliss which is our being's end
and aim.

But when he turned to himself, he viewed his situation with horror,
and yielded almost to despair. What, what could she think of the impure
libertine who dared to adore her? If ever time could bleach his own soul
and conciliate hers, what, what was to become of Aphrodite? Was his new
career to commence by a new crime? Was he to desert this creature of his
affections, and break a heart which beat only for him? It seemed that
the only compensation he could offer for a life which had achieved
no good would be to establish the felicity of the only being whose
happiness seemed in his power. Yet what a prospect! If before he had
trembled, now----

But his harrowed mind and exhausted body no longer allowed him even
anxiety. Weak, yet excited, his senses fled; and when Arundel Dacre
returned in the evening he found his friend delirious. He sat by his bed
for hours. Suddenly the Duke speaks. Arundel Dacre rises: he leans over
the sufferer's couch.

Ah! why turns the face of the listener so pale, and why gleam those eyes
with terrible fire? The perspiration courses down his clear but sallow
cheek: he throws his dark and clustering curls aside, and passes his
hand over his damp brow, as if to ask whether he, too, had lost his
senses from this fray.

The Duke is agitated. He waves his arm in the air, and calls out in a
tone of defiance and of hate. His voice sinks: it seems that he breathes
a milder language, and speaks to some softer being. There is no sound,
save the long-drawn breath of one on whose countenance is stamped
infinite amazement. Arundel Dacre walks the room disturbed; often he
pauses, plunged in deep thought. 'Tis an hour past midnight, and he
quits the bedside of the young Duke.

He pauses at the threshold, and seems to respire even the noisome air
of the metropolis as if it were Eden. As he proceeds down Hill Street he
stops, and gazes for a moment