CHAPTER XXVII.
THE RESULT OF AN EVENING WITH GENTLEMEN.
All the time that these smiling villains were by consummate art drawing their weak-headed victim into their tolls, what was August doing?
Where were his prompt decision of character, his quick intelligence, his fine German perseverance, that should have saved the brother of Julia Anderson from harpies?
Could our blue-eyed young countryman, who knew how to cherish noble aspirations walking in a plowman's furrow--could he stand there satisfying his revenge by witnessing the ruin of a young man who, like many others, was wicked only because he was weak?
In truth, August was a man whose feelings were persistent.

His resentment was--like his love--constant.

But his love of justice was higher and more persistent, and he could not have seen any one fleeced in this merciless way without taking sides strongly with the victim.
Much less could he see the brother of Julia tempted on to the rocks by the false lights of villainous wreckers without a great desire to save him.

For the letter of Andrew had ceased now to burn in his pocket.

That other letter--the only one that Julia had been able to send through Cynthy Ann and Jonas--that other letter, written all over with such tender extravagances as love feeds on; the thought of that other letter, which told how beautiful and precious were the invitations to the weary and heavy-laden, had stilled resentment, and there came instead a keen desire to save Norman for the sake of Julia and justice.