"I have been of use, too, in my day and generation. I have won many souls, but not for heaven. I have served my master well, and shall doubtless receive my reward."
"This is madness, Dinah North, but without excuse. It is the madness of guilt."
"It is a quality I possess in common with my kind. The world is made up of madmen and fools. It is better to belong to the first than to the latter class—to rule, than to be ruled. Between those two parties the whole earth is divided. Knowledge is power, whether it be the knowledge of evil or of good. I heard that sentence when a girl; it never left my mind, and I have acted upon it through life."
"It must have been upon the knowledge of evil—as your deeds can too well testify."
"You have guessed right, young sir. By it, the devil lost heaven, but he gained hell. By it tyrants rule, and mean men become rich—virtue is overcome, and vice triumphs."
"And what have you gained by it?"
"Much: it has given me an influence in the world, which without it, never could have belonged to one of my degree. By it, I have swayed the destinies of those whom fortune had apparently placed beyond my reach. It has given me, Geoffrey Moncton, power over thee and thine, and at this very moment, the key of your future fortune is in my keeping."
"And your life in mine, vain boaster! The hour is at hand which shall make even a hardened sinner like you acknowledge that there is a righteous God who judges in the earth. I ask you not for the secret which you possess, and which, after all, may be a falsehood, in unison with the deceit and treachery that has marked your whole life—a lie, invented to extort money, or to gratify the spite of your malignant heart. The power which punishes the guilty and watches over the innocent, will vindicate the good name of which a wretch like you would fain deprive me."
"Don't be too sure of celestial aid," said she, with a sneer, "but, 'make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,' as the wisest policy. Flatter from your Uncle Robert the ill-gotten wealth that his dastardly son, Theophilus, shall never possess."
"This advice comes well from the sordid woman who sold her innocent grandchild to this same Theophilus, in the hope that she might enjoy the rank and fortune which belonged to the good and noble, and by this unholy act sacrificed the peace—perhaps the eternal happiness of that most wretched creature."