We return to Viscount de Vere. When the Earl had left him, the guards had departed, the door been bolted and barred, and lights fled, he felt indeed alone. The dungeon in which he was confined was cold and dark, but scarcely so cold as the past seemed to him, and scarcely so dark as the future. Seldom, perhaps, has such an adverse fate ever followed mortal,--seldom has one seen an instance in which one who might have graced the rank to which he was born, has been, as it were, crushed to be a disgrace! We can afford to look harshly on the character of Captain de Vere; but pity must mingle with our frown when we look fairly on his victim. In the expressive words of the poet we have before quoted,-- "His heart was formed for softness--warped to wrong." He had no right to become what he did. Had he had ordinary advantages, he might have lived to be an ornament to his profession, and an example instead of a beacon to warn others from the shoals on which he had wrecked his bark. We have only to glance over a few of the turning points in his life to see this. An innocent child,--not for his own fault but his father's,--is carried off by a wronged and desperate man. Had this not occurred, in all probability he would have grown up in his right position, and this tale would never have been written. This child, bred as a young pirate, nurtured among the wildest scenes of vice and bloodshed, was by a happy incident, rescued from this odious life; and had the action that delivered him destroyed his evil angel, Stacy, he would have still, in all likelihood, reflected honour on his rescuer. In the changes of life this young man and his destroyer are again thrown together, and an evil acquaintance begun. His greatest friend is cut off by yellow fever, and bearer of his sword, he makes his first acquaintance with her, his wild passion for whom sealed his woe. Once more he is thrown amongst his own family as a stranger, and as a guest enters his paternal hall. His brother, in a high position at his expense, sues for and obtains the love of his adored one. No marvel the fiend of jealousy burned within him. He seeks Stacy as a counsellor, and by another strange mischance, meets his brother the Captain. From that fatal night we may date the first move downwards; like the train on the incline he began slowly,--his descent became swifter and swifter,--till at last, unable to arrest his dread pace, with fearful rapidity he rushed down the steep of sin and misery to the gulf of everlasting woe! He tried, first by deception, then by passionate entreaty, to regain the heart he had lost. Then came the second lost opportunity,--the night at the Towers, when a little firmness would have stayed his decline. He was of a wavering mind, an unfixed will, and the stern, strong-minded Captain outflanked him, and the second stage of infamy began.