"And may I be permitted to ask, how you gained this information, which is so contrary to every statement I have received; and which, if true, must change my opinion of him?"
"I gained it, in the first instance, through the medium of your brothers; but as I was unwilling to believe such an unfavourable account, even on their testimony, I obtained a personal interview with several of his creditors, who gave me ocular proof of the correctness of their statements. Indeed, one of them arrested him last week, for the sum of twenty pounds, which had been due more than a year and a half; and others have been induced to wait a few months longer, from the representations of the Colonel, who has told them that his son is just on the eve of marrying a wealthy citizen's daughter, when every claim shall be settled."
"Impossible! Such treachery cannot dwell in the human bosom!"
"It is true, my child."
"I am forced to believe it, Papa, and yet I cannot. Perhaps it is only a temporary embarrassment, arising from some act of generosity, or some species of fraud, that has been practised on him. And you know, Papa, a gentleman who is reduced to poverty, may rise again in society; and gaining wisdom by his experience, he may become more careful."
"Yes, my dear, if he be a man of probity and virtue; but if not, he will never rise."
"And is not Charles Orme a man of probity and virtue?"
"I am sorry to say he is not. He may appear such in your presence, and he may be described as such by his own family, but when his mode of life is inquired into, he will be found frequenting places and societies which a virtuous man would shun as offensive to his taste, and destructive of his honour."
When a forbidden passion has once gained an ascendency over the mind of a female, it very often throws such a spell around her, that she becomes either unable or unwilling to see the inevitable ruin that lies before her; and though she will listen to the advice of her friends with apparent interest, and sometimes profess to adopt it, under a full conviction that it is such as she ought to follow, yet as soon as she comes into contact with the fatal object on which her affections are irrecoverably placed, she feels an influence which destroys all her wise resolves, and hurries her to her doom.
Thus it was with the infatuated Emma, who, after struggling with her affections for many months, and endeavouring to recover that mental peace which she formerly enjoyed, rashly determined to follow the impulse of her will, though her ruin should be the inevitable consequence.