secure from all danger; a few days will enable me to
perfect my schemes for bringing him to a severe reckoning. He it was who
brought such unmerited affliction upon the interesting females I have
been telling you of, by defrauding them of a large sum, which, it
appears, was consigned to his care by the brother of the unfortunate
widow."

"And this money?"

"Was their sole dependence."

"This is, indeed, a crime of the most heinous description!"

"'Tis, indeed, of blackest die," exclaimed Rodolph, "having nothing to
extenuate it, and originating neither in passion nor necessity. The
pangs of hunger will often instigate a man to commit a theft, the thirst
for revenge lead on to murder; but this legal hypocrite is passing rich,
and invested, by common consent, with a character of almost priestly
sanctity, while his countenance and manners are moulded with such
studious art as to inspire and command universal confidence. The
assassin kills you at a blow,--this villain tortures, prolongs your
sufferings, and leaves you, after the death-blow has been inflicted, to
sink under the gnawing agonies of want, misery, and despair. Nothing is
safe from the cupidity of such a man as Ferrand: the inheritance of the
orphan, the hard-earned savings of the laborious poor,--all excite alike
his unprincipled avarice; and that which in other men arises out of the
impulse of the moment is with this wretch the result of a cold and
unrelenting calculation. You entrust him with your wealth,--to see it is
to covet it, and with him to desire is to possess himself, without the
smallest scruple. Totally unheeding your future wretchedness, the
grasping deceiver deprives you of your property, and without a pang
consigns you to beggary and destitution. Suppose that, by a long course
of labour and privations, you have contrived to amass a provision
against the wants and infirmities of old age; well, no sooner is this
cold-blooded hypocrite made the depositary of your little treasure, than
he unhesitatingly appropriates it, leaving you to drag on a miserable
existence, without a morsel of bread but such as the hand of charity
doles out to you. Nor is this all. Let us consider the fearful
consequences of these infamous acts of spoliation. Take the case of the
widow of whom we were speaking just now,--imagine her dying of grief and
a crushed spirit, the results of her heavy afflictions; she leaves a
young and helpless girl to struggle alone in the wor