All that the wit and knowledge and virtue of man could teach, Alice Rutledge had been taught; but the only lesson that could have done her any good in that day, she had never learned. The lesson that she should have lisped at her mother's knee, that should have been implanted before any earthly desire had taken root in her flexile soul, had never been given to her. The "sign to angels known," had not marked her baby-forehead, holy hands had not overshadowed her before the strife began, all her goodness and strength were of the earth, earthy, and the prince of this world won an easy victory over them. When temptation came, it found her careless, secure. How was it a possible thing for her to fall? Why need she renounce what was but a pleasant dream, as innocent as it was secret. She was promised to one whom she had meant to love; she had, perhaps, loved him at first, but with a shade too much of awe to make it perfect love, and the weakness and timidity of her nature made her shrink involuntarily from what was higher and stronger, and cling to what was lower, and nearer to her own level. And so she yielded, little by little, to the fascinations of an intercourse that, had she listened to it, even her own weak heart would have told her was a sin. She was bound by betrothal, her tempter was bound by marriage; if the glamour of destruction had not been over her already, she could have seen the madness of such an intimacy, the sure perdition that such a violation of right, even in thought, must lead to. But it was the very impossibility and security that ensnared her, that blinded those around her. Richard's dearest friend, the most desired and welcome guest at her father's house, the most accomplished and refined gentleman she knew, how could she see in him the traitor that he was? She, almost a child in years and inexperience, and he, a man of the world, with the world's worst principles, and withal, so wily, so eloquent, so impassioned, was it strange that before she dreamed of danger, she was snared beyond redemption. The destruction of her principles had been so gradual, the instilling of his so artful, that the work was nearly done before the lost girl saw her peril. Then, no one can tell the struggles of her tempted soul; duty and reason against sinful love and guilty passion; but who can question for a moment which way the balance turned? There was none of whom she could ask counsel. She had deceived and outraged all she loved, so shamefully, by the very thought of what now tempted her, that it was worse than death to betray in the least her misery. The one to whom at last she turned, was the one least fitted to direct her; her companion, governess and friend was only less worldly and thoughtless than her charge; she loved her with all her heart, would have sacrificed anything to serve her; she never dreamed of the danger she was in till too late; terrified, she strove to bring her back to reason, but in vain.