ce, homicide," cried the parson, shuddering; and he glided to
the side of the detected sinner, from whom all else had recoiled in
loathing.

Craft against craft, talent against talent, treason against treason--in
all this Randal Leslie would have risen superior to Giulio di Peschiera.
But what now crushed him was not the superior intellect,--it was the
sheer brute power of audacity and nerve. Here stood the careless,
unblushing villain, making light of his guilt, carrying it away from
disgust itself, with resolute look and front erect. There stood the
abler, subtler, profounder criminal, cowering, abject, pitiful; the
power of mere intellectual knowledge shivered into pieces against the
brazen metal with which the accident of constitution often arms some
ignobler nature.

The contrast was striking, and implied that truth so universally felt,
yet so little acknowledged in actual life, that men with audacity
and force of character can subdue and paralyze those far superior to
themselves in ability and intelligence. It was these qualities which
made Peschiera Randal's master; nay, the very physical attributes of
the count, his very voice and form, his bold front and unshrinking eye,
overpowered the acuter mind of the refining schemer, as in a popular
assembly some burly Cleon cows into timorous silence every dissentient
sage. But Randal turned in sullen impatience from the parson's whisper,
that breathed comfort or urged repentance; and at length said, with
clearer tones than he had yet mustered,

"It is not a personal conflict with the Count di Peschiera that
can vindicate my honour; and I disdain to defend myself against the
accusations of a usurer, and of a mam who--"

"Monsieur!" said the count, drawing himself up.

"A man who," persisted Randal, though he trembled visibly, "by his own
confession, was himself guilty of all the schemes in which he would
represent me as his accomplice, and who now, not clearing himself, would
yet convict another--"

"Cher petit monsieur!" said the count, with his grand air of disdain,
"when men like me make use of men like you, we reward them for a service
if rendered, or discard them if the service be not done; and if I
condescend to confess and apologize for any act I have committed,
surely Mr. Randal Leslie might do the same without disparagement to
his dignity. But I should never, sir, have taken the trouble to appear
against you, had you not, as I learn, pretended to the hand