- tainted Eloise; untainted even by surrounding depravity:
not for worlds would I injure you. Oh! I can conceal it no longer—will conceal it no longer—Nempere is a villain."
"Is he?" said Eloise, apparently resigned, now, to the severest shocks of fortune: "then, then indeed I know not with whom to seek an asylum. Methinks all are villains."
"Listen then, injured innocence, and reflect in whom thou hast confided. Ten days ago, in the gaming-house at Geneva, Nempere was present. He engaged in play with me, and I won of him considerable sums. He told me that he could not pay me now, but that he had a beautiful girl, whom he would give to me, if I would release him from the obligation. 'Est elle une fille de joie?' I inquired. 'Oui, et de vertu praticable.' This quieted my conscience. In a moment of licentiousness, I acceded to his proposal; and, as money is almost valueless to me, I tore the bond for three thousand zechins: but did I think that an angel was to be sacrificed to the degraded avarice of the being to whom her fate was committed? By heavens, I will this moment seek him—upbraid him with his inhuman depravity,—and" "Oh! stop, stop," cried Eloise, "do not seek him; all, all is well—I will leave him. Oh! how I thank you, stranger, for this unmerited pity to a wretch who is, alas! too conscious that she deserves it not."—"Ah! you deserve every thing," interrupted the impassioned Mountfort; "you deserve paradise. But leave this perjured villain; and do not say, unkind fair-one, that you have no friend: indeed, you have a most warm, disinterested friend in me."—"Ah! but," said Eloise, hesitatingly, "what will the"
"World say," she was about to have added; but the conviction of having so lately and so flagrantly violated every regard to its opinion—she only sighed. "Well,"
