ng,--this, if I had not known that it was so, I could not have
conceived. The murderer who, atom by atom, continues the slow poisoning
of a perishing body for many months, and dies amid the yell of a
people's execration,--in sober earnest, before God, I believe he is less
guilty than he who, drop by drop, pours into the soul of another the
curdling venom of moral pollution, than he who feeds into full-sized
fury the dormant monsters of another's evil heart. Surely the devil
must welcome a human tempter with open arms.

Of course Bruce had to proceed with Lord De Vayne in a manner totally
different from that which he had applied to Jedediah Hazlet. He felt
himself that the task was far more difficult and delicate, especially as
it was by no means easy to get access to De Vayne's company at all.
Julian, Lillyston, Kennedy, and a few others, formed the circle of his
only friends, and although he was constantly with _them_, he was rarely
to be found in other society. But this was a difficulty which a man
with so large an acquaintance as Bruce could easily surmount, and for
the rest he trusted to the conviction which he had adopted, that there
was no such thing as sincere godliness, and that men only differed in
proportion to the weakness or intensity of the temptations which
happened to assail them.

So Bruce managed, without any apparent manoeuvring, to see more of De
Vayne at various men's rooms, and he generally made a point of sitting
next to him when he could. He had naturally a most insinuating address
and a suppleness of manner which enabled him to adapt himself with
facility to the tastes and temperaments of the men among whom he was
thrown. There were few who could make themselves more pleasant and
plausible when it suited them than Vyvyan Bruce.

De Vayne soon got over the shrinking with which he had at first regarded
him, and no longer shunned the acquaintance of which he seemed desirous.
It was not until this stage that Bruce made any serious attempt to take
some steps towards winning his wager. He asked De Vayne to a dessert,
and took care that the wines should be of an insidious strength. But
the young nobleman's abstemiousness wholly defeated and baffled him, as
he rarely took more than a single glass.

"You pass the wine, De Vayne; don't do that."

"Thank you, I've had enough."

"Come, come; allow me," said Bruce, filling his glass for him.

De Vayne drank it out of politeness, and Bruce repea