“On something like a bed, lay a man, with a face seemingly emaciated with sickness, and a look of patient dejection.  A bundle of dirty shreds served him for a pillow, but he had a better support—­the arm of a female who kneeled beside him, beautiful as an angel, but with a fading languor in her countenance, the still life of melancholy, that seemed to borrow its shade from the object on which she gazed.  There was a tear in her eye—­the sick man kissed it off in its bud, smiling through the dimness of his own—­when she saw Mountford, she crawled forward on the ground, and clasped his knees.  He raised her from the floor; she threw her arms round his neck, and sobbed out a speech of thankfulness, eloquent beyond the power of language.

“‘Compose yourself, my love,’ said the man on the bed; ’but he, whose goodness has caused that emotion, will pardon its effects.’

“‘How is this, Mountford?’ said I; ‘what do I see?  What must I do?’

“‘You see,’ replied the stranger, ’a wretch, sunk in poverty, starving in prison, stretched on a sick bed.  But that is little.  There are his wife and children wanting the bread which he has not to give them!  Yet you cannot easily imagine the conscious serenity of his mind.  In the gripe of affliction, his heart swells with the pride of virtue; it can even look down with pity on the man whose cruelty has wrung it almost to bursting.  You are, I fancy, a friend of Mr. Mountford’s.  Come nearer, and I’ll tell you, for, short as my story is, I can hardly command breath enough for a recital.  The son of Count Respino (I started, as if I had trod on a viper) has long had a criminal passion for my wife.  This her prudence had concealed from me; but he had lately the boldness to declare it to myself.  He promised me affluence in exchange for honour, and threatened misery as its attendant if I kept it.  I treated him with the contempt he deserved; the consequence was, that he hired a couple of bravoes (for I am persuaded they acted under his direction), who attempted to assassinate me in the street; but I made such a defence as obliged them to fly, after having given me two or three stabs, none of which, however, were mortal.  But his revenge was not thus to be disappointed.  In the little dealings of my trade I had contracted some debts, of which he had made himself master for my ruin.  I was confined here at his suit, when not yet recovered from the wounds I had received; the dear woman, and these two boys, followed me, that we might starve together; but Providence interposed, and sent Mr. Mountford to our support.  He has relieved my family from the gnawings of hunger, and rescued me from death, to which a fever, consequent on my wounds and increased by the want of every necessary, had almost reduced me.’

“‘Inhuman villain!’ I exclaimed, lifting up my eyes to heaven.

“‘Inhuman indeed!’ said the lovely woman who stood at my side.  ’Alas! sir, what had we done to offend him? what had these little ones done, that they should perish in the toils of his vengeance?’