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 mixture of gentle blood was in her veins.