The appearance of pestilence, meanwhile, threw them into panic, and they hastened to remove from danger. Mrs. Villars appears to have been a woman of no ordinary views. She stooped to the vilest means of amassing money; but this money was employed to secure to herself and her daughters the benefits of independence. She purchased the house which she occupied in the city, and a mansion in the environs, well built and splendidly furnished. To the latter, she and her family, of which the Italian girl was now a member, retired at the close of July.
I have mentioned that the source of my intelligence was a kinsman, who had been drawn from the paths of sobriety and rectitude by the impetuosity of youthful passions. He had power to confess and deplore, but none to repair, his errors. One of these women held him by a spell which he struggled in vain to dissolve, and by which, in spite of resolutions and remorses, he was drawn to her feet, and made to sacrifice to her pleasure his reputation and his fortune.
My house was his customary abode during those intervals in which he was persuaded to pursue his profession. Some time before the infection began its progress, he had disappeared. No tidings were received of him, till a messenger arrived, entreating my assistance. I was conducted to the house of Mrs. Villars, in which I found no one but my kinsman. Here, it seems, he had immured himself from my inquiries, and, on being seized by the reigning malady, had been deserted by the family, who, ere they departed, informed me by a messenger of his condition.
Despondency combined with his disease to destroy him. Before he died, he informed me fully of the character of his betrayers. The late arrival, name, and personal condition of Clemenza Lodi were related. Welbeck was not named, but was described in terms which, combined with the narrative of Mervyn, enabled me to recognise the paramour of Lucy Villars in the man whose crimes had been the principal theme of our discourse.
Mervyn's curiosity was greatly roused when I intimated my acquaintance with the fate of Clemenza. In answer to his eager interrogations, I related what I knew. The tale plunged him into reverie. Recovering, at length, from his thoughtfulness, he spoke:—
"Her condition is perilous. The poverty of Welbeck will drive him far from her abode. Her profligate protectors will entice her or abandon her to ruin. Cannot she be saved?"
"I know not," answered I, "by what means."
"The means are obvious. Let her remove to some other dwelling. Let her be apprized of the vices of those who surround her. Let her be entreated to fly. The will need only be inspired, the danger need only be shown, and she is safe, for she will remove beyond its reach."
"Thou art an adventurous youth. Who wilt thou find to undertake the office? Who will be persuaded to enter the house of a stranger, seek without an introduction the presence of this girl, tell her that the house she inhabits is a house of prostitution, prevail on her to believe the tale, and persuade her to accompany him? Who will open his house to the fugitive? Whom will you convince that her illicit intercourse with Welbeck, of which the opprobrious tokens cannot be concealed, has not fitted her for the company of prostitutes, and made her unworthy of protection? Who will adopt into their family a stranger whose conduct has incurred infamy, and whose present associates have, no doubt, made her worthy of the curse?"
"True. These are difficulties which I did not foresee. Must she then perish? Shall not something be done to rescue her from infamy and guilt?"