Of all the singular volumes, ever seen, this certainly was one of the most singular. It comprised perchance, one thousand manuscript pages, written by at least a hundred hands. There were original letters, and copies of letters; some of them traced by the tremulous hand of the dying. There were histories and fragments of histories,--the darkest record of the criminal court is not so black, as many a history comprised within the compass of this volume. It contained the history, sometimes complete sometimes in fragmentary shape, of all who had ever sought the aid of Madam Resimer, or,--suffered beneath her hands. And there were letters there, and histories there, which the Madam had evidently gathered, with a view of extorting money from certain persons, who had never passed into the circle of her infernal influence. All the crimes that can spring from unholy marriages, from violation of the marriage vow, from the seduction of innocent maidenhood, from the conflict between poor chastity and rich temptation, stood out upon those pages, in forms of terrible life. That book was a revelation of the civilization of a large city,--a glittering mask with a death's head behind it,--a living body chained to a leperous corpse. Instead of being called the Red Book, it should have been called the Black Book, or the Death Book, or the Mysteries of the Social World. How the aristocracy of the money power was set forth in those pages! That aristocracy which the French know as the "Bourgeoise," which the English style the "Middle Classes," and which the Devil knows for his "own,"--the name of whose god the Savior pronounced, when he uttered the word "Mammon,"--whose loftiest aspiration is embodied in the word "Respectable!" How this modern aristocracy of the money power, stood out in naked life, showy and mean, glittering and heartless, upon the pages of the Red Book! Stood out in colors, painted, not by an enemy, but by its own hand, the mark of its baseness stamped upon its forehead, by its own peculiar seal. One history was there, which, written in different hands, in an especial manner, riveted the interest of Arthur Dermoyne. Bending forward, with the light of the candle upon his brow, he read it page by page, his face manifesting every contrast of emotion as he read. For a title it bore a single name, written in a delicate womanly hand,--"MARION MERLIN." The greater portion of the history was written in the same hand. Leaning upon the shoulder of Arthur Dermoyne, let us, with him, read this sad, dark history. CHAPTER VII. MARION MERLIN.