o devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on
the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest
when it asks entrance to my heart."

"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."

"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to
distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the
eternal throne--between a guide and a seducer?"

"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the
suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more
misery if you listen to it."

"Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the
rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy.
Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"

He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own;
then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he
seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.

"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim--a
disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my
heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."

"To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the
conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I
know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that
you regretted your own imperfection;--one thing I can comprehend: you
intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems
to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to
become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you
began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in
a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to
which you might revert with pleasure."

"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am
paving hell with energy."

"Sir?"

"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint.
Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have
been."

"And better?"

"And better--so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to
doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives
are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes
and Persians, that both are right."

"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them."

"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolut