d, that person
could by no means be an uninfluenced and cold adviser. In after
conversations, Crauford, driven by the awful interest he had in
success from his usual consummateness of duplicity, betrayed in various
important minutiae how deeply he was implicated in the crime for which
he had argued; and not even the visible and progressive decay of his
wife and child could force the stern mind of Glendower into accepting
those wages of iniquity which he knew well were only offered as an
earnest or a snare.

There is a royalty in extreme suffering, when the mind falls not with
the fortunes, which no hardihood of vice can violate unabashed. Often
and often, humble and defeated through all his dissimulation, was
Crauford driven from the presence of the man whom it was his bitterest
punishment to fear most when most he affected to despise; and as often,
re-collecting his powers and fortifying himself in his experience of
human frailty when sufficiently tried, did he return to his attempts.
He waylaid the door and watched the paths of his intended prey. He knew
that the mind which even best repels temptation first urged hath
seldom power to resist the same suggestion, if daily--dropping,
unwearying--presenting itself in every form, obtruded in every hour,
losing its horror by custom, and finding in the rebellious bosom itself
its smoothest vizard and most alluring excuse. And it was, indeed, a
mighty and perilous trial to Glendower, when rushing from the presence
of his wife and child, when fainting under accumulated evils, when
almost delirious with sickening and heated thought, to hear at each
prompting of the wrung and excited nature, each heave of the black
fountain that in no mortal breast is utterly exhausted, one smooth,
soft, persuasive voice forever whispering, "Relief!"--relief, certain,
utter, instantaneous! the voice of one pledged never to relax an
effort or spare a pang, by a danger to himself, a danger of shame
and death,--the voice of one who never spoke but in friendship and
compassion, profound in craft, and a very sage in the disguises with
which language invests deeds. But VIRTUE has resources buried in itself,
which we know not till the invading hour calls them from their retreats.
Surrounded by hosts without, and when Nature itself, turned traitor, is
its most deadly enemy within, it assumes a new and a superhuman power,
which is greater than Nature itself. Whatever be its creed, whatever be
its sect,