The venerable Pastor lifted up his clasped hands:--"Anthony! vile Anthony!" were his ejaculations during the recital.--"Oh, Louis," cried he, "the bane of your life was in that hour!--and in the blindness of your cheated imagination, had you put forth your hand to take the poisoned cup----alas, dear child of my sainted niece, how near were these grey hairs being brought with shame and sorrow to the grave!"--He paused; then resumed; for Louis was too much affected to interrupt him. "I cannot excuse the Duke.--I know him to be profligate; though to you he affects to despise the companions of his debasing pleasures. These women were in his train; and I firmly believe he excited their practices on your inexperienced heart." "How?--Why?" "That he might have you in his power." "For what? my uncle." He had no sooner asked the question, than recollection of the park discourse, answered him. "I know not for what," replied Mr. Athelstone, "Probably he does not exactly know himself.--But there is a principle in wickedness that delights in laying human virtue waste, merely for the sake of destruction! The prince of evil was a _murderer from the beginning_! and so are all his followers." "But my dear Sir, taking it for granted that Duke Wharton had an object to gain with me, how would my subjection to the seductions of these women, put me in his power?" "He would have been your master in the new science you began to learn.--He would have governed your passions by the wiles of these wantons;--and, self-abased, and dependant on him for the wretched wages of your sin; how abject would have been your slavery! How omnipotent his controul!" Louis felt the cold damps of suspicion drop upon his heart.--He turned pale; he gasped for breath. A thousand circumstances which might corroborate his uncle's suggestion rushed upon his recollection. Though Wharton ridiculed the advances of these women, he did not repel them! Though he scorned the sensualist's pursuit, he boasted of seeming to share it, that he might turn him to his purpose. And when Louis retreated in his sight from the temptations he feared, did not the Duke rather laugh him into daring their strength, than encourage his flying from their influence?--Louis had never before doubted human being; much less suspected perfidy in the man who solicited his confidence, and whose irresistible persuasions had charmed him of more than half his heart. The Pastor grasped the cold hand of his nephew. "Louis, can you be thus disturbed, by nothing more than my representation of what might have been?" "My most revered, my best friend!" cried he, straining the old man's hand to his breast; "There are some views of human nature that strike an honest heart with horror. But I cannot suspect Duke Wharton of such murderous treachery, when he had that very heart in his hand. Oh, my uncle, wrest from me the thought! It seems to cover the character of man with one universal blot."