"'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 world,--a weak and delicate being, whose very loveliness increases her dangers and difficulties. Without friends or support, unaccustomed to the rough realities of life, the poor orphan has but to choose between starvation and dishonour. In an evil hour she falls, and becomes a lost, degraded creature. And thus Jacques Ferrand, by his dishonest appropriation of the things committed to his charge, occasions not only the death of the mother, but the dishonour of the child; he destroys the body of the one and the soul of the other,--and again, I say, not with the merciful despatch of the assassin's dagger, but by the slow tortures of lingering cruelty!"