you have not arranged where my allowance is to be sent."

"Ah! true; I will guarantee it. You will find my name sufficient
security."

"At least, it is the best I can get," returned Darvil, carelessly; "and
after all, it is not a bad chance day's work. But I'm sure I can't say
where the money shall be sent. I don't know a man who would not grab
it."

"Very well, then--the best thing (I speak as a man of business) will be
to draw on me for ten guineas quarterly. Wherever you are staying,
any banker can effect this for you. But mind, if ever you overdraw the
account stops."

"I understand," said Darvil; "and when I have finished the bottle I
shall be off."

"You had better," replied the banker, as he opened the door.

The rich man returned home hurriedly. "So Alice, after all, has some
gentle blood in her veins," thought he. "But that father--no, it will
never do. I wish he were hanged and nobody the wiser. I should
very much like to arrange the matter without marrying; but
then--scandal--scandal--scandal. After all, I had better give up all
thoughts of her. She is monstrous handsome, and so--humph:--I shall
never grow an old man."

CHAPTER VIII.

"Began to bend down his admiring eyes
On all her touching looks and qualities,
Turning their shapely sweetness every way
Till 'twas his food and habit day by day."
LEIGH HUNT.

THERE must have been a secret something about Alice Darvil singularly
captivating, that (associated as she was with images of the most sordid
and the vilest crimes) left her still pure and lovely alike in the eyes
of a man as fastidious as Ernest Maltravers, and of a man as influenced
by all the thoughts and theories of the world as the shrewd banker of
C------. Amidst things foul and hateful had sprung up this beautiful
flower, as if to preserve the inherent heavenliness and grace of human
nature, and proclaim the handiwork of God in scenes where human nature
had been most debased by the abuses of social art; and where the light
of God Himself was most darkened and obscured. That such contrasts,
though rarely and as by chance, are found, every one who has carefully
examined the wastes and deserts of life must own. I have drawn Alice
Darvil scrupulously from life, and I can declare that I have not
exaggerated hue or lineament in the portrait. I do not suppose, with
our good banker, that she owed anything, unless it might be a greater
delicacy of form and feature, to whatever mi