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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Ernest Maltravers, by Bulwer-Lytton, Book 8
+#75 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: Ernest Maltravers, Book 8
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7647]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2004]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V8 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Dagny,
+                and David Widger,
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+  Whither come Wisdom's queen
+  And the snare-weaving Love?
+          EURIP. /Iphig. in Aul./ I. 1310.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  "Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit."*--OVID.
+
+* Neighbourhood caused the acquaintance and first introduction.
+
+CLEVELAND'S villa /was/ full, and of persons usually called agreeable.
+Amongst the rest was Lady Florence Lascelles.  The wise old man had ever
+counselled Maltravers not to marry too young; but neither did he wish
+him to put off that momentous epoch of life till all the bloom of heart
+and emotion was passed away.  He thought, with the old lawgivers, that
+thirty was the happy age for forming a connection, in the choice of
+which, with the reason of manhood, ought, perhaps, to be blended the
+passion of youth.  And he saw that few men were more capable than
+Maltravers of the true enjoyments of domestic life.  He had long
+thought, also, that none were more calculated to sympathise with
+Ernest's views, and appreciate his peculiar character, than the gifted
+and brilliant Florence Lascelles.  Cleveland looked with toleration on
+her many eccentricities of thought and conduct,--eccentricities which he
+imagined would rapidly melt away beneath the influence of that
+attachment which usually operates so great a change in women; and, where
+it is strongly and intensely felt, moulds even those of the most
+obstinate character into compliance or similitude with the sentiments or
+habits of its object.
+
+The stately self-control of Maltravers was, he conceived, precisely that
+quality that gives to men an unconscious command over the very thoughts
+of the woman whose affection they win: while, on the other hand, he
+hoped that the fancy and enthusiasm of Florence would tend to render
+sharper and more practical an ambition, which seemed to the sober man of
+the world too apt to refine upon the means, and to /cui bono/ the
+objects of worldly distinction.  Besides, Cleveland was one who
+thoroughly appreciated the advantages of wealth and station; and the
+rank and the dower of Florence were such as would force Maltravers into
+a position in social life, which could not fail to make new exactions
+upon talents which Cleveland fancied were precisely those adapted rather
+to command than to serve.  In Ferrers he recognised a man to /get/ into
+power--in Maltravers one by whom power, if ever attained, would be
+wielded with dignity, and exerted for great uses.  Something, therefore,
+higher than mere covetousness for the vulgar interests of Maltravers
+made Cleveland desire to secure to him the heart and hand of the great
+heiress; and he fancied that, whatever might be the obstacle, it would
+not be in the will of Lady Florence herself.  He prudently resolved,
+however, to leave matters to their natural course.  He hinted nothing to
+one party or the other.  No place for falling in love like a large
+country house, and no time for it, amongst the indolent well-born, like
+the close of a London season, when, jaded by small cares, and sickened
+of hollow intimacies, even the coldest may well yearn for the tones of
+affection--the excitement of an honest emotion.
+
+Somehow or other it happened that Florence and Ernest, after the first
+day or two, were constantly thrown together.  She rode on horseback, and
+Maltravers was by her side--they made excursions on the river, and they
+sat on the same bench in the gliding pleasure-boat.  In the evenings,
+the younger guests, with the assistance of the neighbouring families,
+often got up a dance in a temporary pavilion built out of the
+dining-room.  Ernest never danced.  Florence did at first.  But once, as
+she was conversing with Maltravers, when a gay guardsman came to claim
+her promised hand in the waltz, she seemed struck by a grave change in
+Ernest's face.
+
+"Do you never waltz?" she asked, while the guardsman was searching for a
+corner wherein safely to deposit his hat.
+
+"No," said he; "yet there is no impropriety in /my/ waltzing."
+
+"And you mean that there is in mine?"
+
+"Pardon me--I did not say so."
+
+"But you think it."
+
+"Nay, on consideration, I am glad, perhaps, that you do waltz."
+
+"You are mysterious."
+
+"Well then, I mean, that you are precisely the woman I would never fall
+in love with.  And I feel the danger is lessened, when I see you destroy
+any one of my illusions, or, I ought to say, attack any one of my
+prejudices."
+
+Lady Florence coloured; but the guardsman and the music left her no time
+for reply.  However, after that night she waltzed no more.  She was
+unwell--she declared she was ordered not to dance, and so quadrilles
+were relinquished as well as the waltz.
+
+Maltravers could not but be touched and flattered by this regard for his
+opinion; but Florence contrived to testify it so as to forbid
+acknowledgment, since another motive had been found for it.  The second
+evening after that commemorated by Ernest's candid rudeness, they
+chanced to meet in the conservatory, which was connected with the
+ball-room; and Ernest, pausing to inquire after her health, was struck
+by the listless and dejected sadness which spoke in her tone and
+countenance as she replied to him.
+
+"Dear Lady Florence," said he, "I fear you are worse than you will
+confess.  You should shun these draughts.  You owe it to your friends to
+be more careful of yourself."
+
+"Friends!" said Lady Florence, bitterly--"I have no friends!--even my
+poor father would not absent himself from a cabinet dinner a week after
+I was dead.  But that is the condition of public life--its hot and
+searing blaze puts out the lights of all lesser but not unholier
+affections.--Friends!  Fate, that made Florence Lascelles the envied
+heiress, denied her brothers, sisters; and the hour of her birth lost
+her even the love of a mother!  Friends! where shall I find them?"
+
+As she ceased, she turned to the open casement, and stepped out into the
+verandah, and by the trembling of her voice Ernest felt that she had
+done so to hide or to suppress her tears.
+
+"Yet," said he, following her, "there is one class of more distant
+friends, whose interest Lady Florence Lascelles cannot fail to secure,
+however she may disdain it.  Among the humblest of that class, suffer me
+to rank myself.  Come, I assume the privilege of advice--the night air
+is a luxury you must not indulge."
+
+"No, no, it refreshes me--it soothes.  You misunderstand me, I have no
+illness that still skies and sleeping flowers can increase."
+
+Maltravers, as is evident, was not in love with Florence, but he could
+not fail, brought, as he had lately been, under the direct influence of
+her rare and prodigal gifts, mental and personal, to feel for her a
+strong and even affectionate interest--the very frankness with which he
+was accustomed to speak to her, and the many links of communion there
+necessarily were between himself and a mind so naturally powerful and so
+richly cultivated, had already established their acquaintance upon an
+intimate footing.
+
+"I cannot restrain you, Lady Florence," said he, half smiling, "but my
+conscience will not let me be an accomplice.  I will turn king's
+evidence, and hunt out Lord Saxingham to send him to you."
+
+Lady Florence, whose face was averted from his, did not appear to hear
+him.
+
+"And you, Mr. Maltravers," turning quickly round--"you--have you
+friends?  Do you feel that there are, I do not say public, but private
+affections and duties, for which life is made less a possession than a
+trust?"
+
+"Lady Florence--no!--I have friends, it is true, and Cleveland is of the
+nearest; but the life within life--the second self, in whom we vest the
+right and mastery over our own being--I know it not.  But is it," he
+added, after a pause, "a rare privation?  Perhaps it is a happy one.  I
+have learned to lean on my own soul, and not look elsewhere for the
+reeds that a wind can break."
+
+"Ah, it is a cold philosophy--you may reconcile yourself to its wisdom
+in the world, in the hum and shock of men; but in solitude, with
+Nature--ah, no!  While the mind alone is occupied, you may be contented
+with the pride of stoicism; but there are moments when the /heart/
+wakens as from a sleep--wakens like a frightened child--to feel itself
+alone and in the dark."
+
+Ernest was silent, and Florence continued, in an altered voice: "This is
+a strange conversation--and you must think me indeed a wild,
+romance-reading person, as the world is apt to call me.  But if I
+live--I--pshaw!--life denies ambition to women."
+
+"If a woman like you, Lady Florence, should ever love, it will be one in
+whose career you may perhaps find that noblest of all ambitions--the
+ambition women only feel--the ambition for another!"
+
+"Ah! but I shall never love," said Lady Florence, and her cheek grew
+pale as the starlight shone on it; "still, perhaps," she added quickly,
+"I may at least know the blessing of friendship.  Why now," and here,
+approaching Maltravers, she laid her hand with a winning frankness on
+his arm--" why now, should not we be to each other as if love, as you
+call it, were not a thing for earth--and friendship supplied its
+place?--there is no danger of our falling in love with each other!  You
+are not vain enough to expect it in me, and I, you know, am a coquette;
+let us be friends, confidants--at least till you marry, or I give
+another the right to control my friendships and monopolise my secrets."
+
+Maltravers was startled--the sentiment Florence addressed to him, he, in
+words not dissimilar, had once addressed to Valerie.
+
+"The world," said he, kissing the hand that yet lay on his arm, "the
+world will--"
+
+"Oh, you men!--the world, the world!--Everything gentle, everything
+pure, everything noble, high-wrought and holy--is to be squared, and
+cribbed, and maimed to the rule and measure of the world!  The
+world--are you, too, its slave?  Do you not despise its hollow cant--its
+methodical hypocrisy?"
+
+"Heartily!" said Ernest Maltravers, almost with fierceness.  "No man ever
+so scorned its false gods and its miserable creeds--its war upon the
+weak--its fawning upon the great--its ingratitude to benefactors--its
+sordid league with mediocrity against excellence.  Yes, in proportion as
+I love mankind, I despise and detest that worse than Venetian oligarchy
+which mankind set over them and call 'THE WORLD.'"
+
+And then it was, warmed by the excitement of released feelings,
+long and carefully shrouded, that this man, ordinarily so calm and
+self-possessed, poured burningly and passionately forth all those
+tumultuous and almost tremendous thoughts, which, however much we
+may regulate, control, or disguise them, lurk deep within the souls
+of all of us, the seeds of the eternal war between the natural man
+and the artificial; between our wilder genius and our social
+conventionalities;--thoughts that from time to time break forth into the
+harbingers of vain and fruitless revolutions, impotent struggles against
+destiny;--thoughts that good and wise men would be slow to promulge and
+propagate, for they are of a fire which burns as well as brightens, and
+which spreads from heart to heart--as a spark spreads amidst
+flax;--thoughts which are rifest where natures are most high, but belong
+to truths that virtue dare not tell aloud.  And as Maltravers spoke,
+with his eyes flashing almost intolerable light--his breast heaving, his
+form dilated, never to the eyes of Florence Lascelles did he seem so
+great: the chains that bound the strong limbs of his spirit seemed
+snapped asunder, and all his soul was visible and towering, as a thing
+that has escaped slavery, and lifts its crest to heaven, and feels that
+it is free.
+
+That evening saw a new bond of alliance between these two
+persons,--young, handsome, and of opposite sexes, they agreed to be
+friends, and nothing more.  Fools!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  "Idem velle, et idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est."*
+               SALLUST.
+
+*To will the same thing and not to will the same thing, that at length
+is firm friendship.
+
+  "/Carlos./  That letter.
+   /Princess Eboli./  Oh, I shall die.  Return it instantly."
+               SCHILLER: /Don Carlos/.
+
+IT seemed as if the compact Maltravers and Lady Florence had entered
+into removed whatever embarrassment and reserve had previously existed.
+They now conversed with an ease and freedom not common in persons of
+different sexes before they have passed their grand climacteric.
+Ernest, in ordinary life, like most men of warm emotions and strong
+imagination, if not taciturn, was at least guarded.  It was as if a
+weight were taken from his breast, when he found one person who could
+understand him best when he was most candid.  His eloquence--his
+poetry--his intense and concentrated enthusiasm found a voice.  He could
+talk to an individual as he would have written to the public--a rare
+happiness to the men of books.
+
+Florence seemed to recover her health and spirits as by a miracle; yet
+she was more gentle, more subdued, than of old--there was less effort to
+shine, less indifference whether she shocked.  Persons who had not met
+her before, wondered why she was dreaded in society.  But at times a
+great natural irritability of temper--a quick suspicion of the motives
+of those around her--an imperious and obstinate vehemence of will, were
+visible to Maltravers, and served, perhaps, to keep him heart-whole.  He
+regarded her through the eyes of the intellect, not those of the
+passions--he thought not of her as a woman--her very talents, her very
+grandeur of idea and power of purpose, while they delighted him in
+conversation, diverted his imagination from dwelling on her beauty.  He
+looked on her as something apart from her sex;--a glorious creature
+spoilt by being a woman.  He once told her so, laughing, and Florence
+considered it a compliment.  Poor Florence, her scorn of her sex avenged
+her sex, and robbed her of her proper destiny!
+
+Cleveland silently observed their intimacy, and listened with a quiet
+smile to the gossips who pointed out /tetes-a-tetes/ by the terrace, and
+loiterings by the lawn, and predicted what would come of it all.  Lord
+Saxingham was blind.  But his daughter was of age, in possession of her
+princely fortune, and had long made him sensible of her independence of
+temper.  His lordship, however, thoroughly misunderstood the character
+of her pride, and felt fully convinced she would marry no one less than
+a duke; as for flirtations, he thought them natural and innocent
+amusements.  Besides, he was very little at Temple Grove.  He went to
+London every morning, after breakfasting in his own room--came back to
+dine, play at whist, and talk good-humoured nonsense to Florence in his
+dressing-room, for the three minutes that took place between his sipping
+his wine-and-water and the appearance of his valet.  As for the other
+guests, it was not their business to do more than gossip with each
+other; and so Florence and Maltravers went on their way unmolested,
+though not unobserved.  Maltravers, not being himself in love, never
+fancied that Lady Florence loved him, or that she would be in any danger
+of doing so.  This is a mistake a man often commits--a woman never.  A
+woman always knows when she is loved, though she often imagines she is
+loved when she is not.  Florence was not happy, for happiness is a calm
+feeling.  But she was excited with a vague, wild, intoxicating emotion.
+
+She had learned from Maltravers that she had been misinformed by
+Ferrers, and that no other claimed empire over his heart; and whether or
+not he loved her, still for the present they seemed all in all to each
+other; she lived but for the present day, she would not think of the
+morrow.
+
+Since that severe illness which had tended so much to alter Ernest's
+mode of life, he had not come before the public as an author.  Latterly,
+however, the old habit had broken out again.  With the comparative
+idleness of recent years, the ideas and feelings which crowd so fast on
+the poetical temperament, once indulged, had accumulated within him to
+an excess that demanded vent.  For with some, to write is not a vague
+desire, but an imperious destiny.  The fire is kindled and must break
+forth; the wings are fledged, and the birds must leave their nest.  The
+communication of thought to man is implanted as an instinct in those
+breasts to which Heaven has intrusted the solemn agencies of genius.  In
+the work which Maltravers now composed he consulted Florence: his
+confidence delighted her--it was a compliment she could appreciate.
+Wild, fervid, impassioned, was that work--a brief and holiday
+creation--the youngest and most beloved of the children of his brain.
+And as day by day the bright design grew into shape, and thought and
+imagination found themselves "local habitations," Florence felt as if
+she were admitted into the palace of the genii, and made acquainted with
+the mechanism of those spells and charms with which the preternatural
+powers of mind design the witchery of the world.  Ah, how different in
+depth and majesty were those intercommunications of idea between Ernest
+Maltravers and a woman scarcely inferior to himself in capacity and
+acquirement, from that bridge of shadowy and dim sympathies which the
+enthusiastic boy had once built up between his own poetry of knowledge
+and Alice's poetry of love!
+
+It was one late afternoon in September, when the sun was slowly going
+down its western way, that Lady Florence, who had been all that morning
+in her own room, paying off, as she said, the dull arrears of
+correspondence, rather on Lord Saxingham's account than her own; for he
+punctiliously exacted from her the most scrupulous attention to cousins
+fifty times removed, provided they were rich, clever, well off, or in
+any way of consequence:--it was one afternoon that, relieved from these
+avocations, Lady Florence strolled through the grounds with Cleveland.
+The gentlemen were still in the stubble-fields, the ladies were out in
+barouches and pony phaetons, and Cleveland and Lady Florence were alone.
+
+Apropos of Florence's epistolary employment, their conversation fell
+upon that most charming species of literature, which joins with the
+interest of a novel the truth of a history--the French memoir and
+letter-writers.  It was a part of literature in which Cleveland was
+thoroughly at home.
+
+"Those agreeable and polished gossips," said he, "how well they
+contrived to introduce nature into art!  Everything artificial seemed so
+natural to them.  They even feel by a kind of clockwork, which seems to
+go better than the heart itself.  Those pretty sentiments, those
+delicate gallantries, of Madame de Sevigne to her daughter, how amiable
+they are; but, somehow or other, I can never fancy them the least
+motherly.  What an ending for a maternal epistle is that elegant
+compliment--'Songez que de tons les coeurs ou vous regnez, il n'y en a
+aucun ou votre empire soit si bien etabli que dans le mien.'*  I can
+scarcely fancy Lord Saxingham writing so to you, Lady Florence."
+
+* Think that of all the hearts over which you reign, there is not one in
+which your empire can be so well established as in mine.
+
+"No, indeed," replied Lady Florence, smiling.  "Neither papas nor mammas
+in England are much addicted to compliment; but I confess I like
+preserving a sort of gallantry even in our most familiar
+connections--why should we not carry the imagination into all the
+affections?"
+
+"I can scarce answer the why," returned Cleveland; "but I think it would
+destroy the reality.  I am rather of the old school.  If I had a
+daughter, and asked her to get my slippers, I am afraid I should think
+it a little wearisome if I had, in receiving them, to make /des belles
+phrases/ in return."
+
+While they were thus talking, and Lady Florence continued to press her
+side of the question, they passed through a little grove that conducted
+to an arm of the stream which ornamented the grounds, and by its quiet
+and shadowy gloom was meant to give a contrast to the livelier features
+of the domain.  Here they came suddenly upon Maltravers.  He was walking
+by the side of the brook, and evidently absorbed in thought.
+
+It was the trembling of Lady Florence's hand as it lay on Cleveland's
+arm, that induced him to stop short in an animated commentary on
+Rochefoucauld's character of Cardinal de Retz, and look round.
+
+"Ha, most meditative Jacques!" said he; "and what new moral hast thou
+been conning in our Forest of Ardennes?"
+
+"Oh, I am glad to see you; I wished to consult you, Cleveland.  But
+first, Lady Florence, to convince you and our host that my rambles have
+not been wholly fruitless, and that I could not walk from Dan to
+Beersheba and find all barren, accept my offering--a wild rose that I
+discovered in the thickest part of the wood.  It is not a civilised
+rose.  Now, Cleveland, a word with you."
+
+"And now, Mr. Maltravers, I am /de trop/," said Lady Florence.
+
+"Pardon me, I have no secrets from you in this matter--or rather these
+matters; for there are two to be discussed. In the first place, Lady
+Florence, that poor Cesarini,--you know and like him--nay, no blushes."
+
+"Did I blush?--then it was in recollection of an old reproach of yours."
+
+"At its justice?--well, no matter.  He is one for whom I always felt a
+lively interest.  His very morbidity of temperament only increases my
+anxiety for his future fate.  I have received a letter from De
+Montaigne, his brother-in-law, who seems seriously uneasy about
+Castruccio.  He wishes him to leave England at once, as the sole means
+of restoring his broken fortunes.  De Montaigne has the opportunity of
+procuring him a diplomatic situation, which may not again
+occur--and--but you know the man--what shall we do?  I am sure he will
+not listen to me; he looks on me as an interested rival for fame."
+
+"Do you think I have any subtler eloquence?" said Cleveland.  "No, I am
+an author, too.  Come, I think your ladyship must be the
+arch-negotiator."
+
+"He has genius, he has merit," said Maltravers, pleadingly; "he wants
+nothing but time and experience to wean him from his foibles.  /Will/
+you try to save him, Lady Florence?"
+
+"Why? nay, I must not be obdurate; I will see him when I go to town.  It
+is like you, Mr. Maltravers, to feel this interest in one--"
+
+"Who does not like me, you would say; but he will some day or other.
+Besides, I owe him deep gratitude.  In his weaker qualities I have seen
+many which all literary men might incur, without strict watch over
+themselves; and let me add, also, that his family have great claims on
+me."
+
+"You believe in the soundness of his heart, and in the integrity of his
+honour?" said Cleveland, inquiringly.
+
+"Indeed I do; these are, these must be, the redeeming qualities of
+poets."
+
+Maltravers spoke warmly; and such at that time was his influence over
+Florence, that his words formed--alas, too fatally!--her estimate of
+Castruccio's character, which had at first been high, but which his own
+presumption had latterly shaken.  She had seen him three or four times
+in the interval between the receipt of his apologetic letter and her
+visit to Cleveland, and he had seemed to her rather sullen than humbled.
+But she felt for the vanity she herself had wounded.
+
+"And now," continued Maltravers, "for my second subject of consultation.
+But that is political; will it weary Lady Florence?"
+
+"Oh, no; to politics I am never indifferent: they always inspire me with
+contempt or admiration, according to the motives of those who bring the
+science into action.  Pray say on."
+
+"Well," said Cleveland, "one confidant at a time; you will forgive me,
+for I see my guests coming across the lawn, and I may as well make a
+diversion in your favour.  Ernest can consult /me/ at any time."
+
+Cleveland walked away; but the intimacy between Maltravers and Florence
+was of so frank a nature that there was nothing embarrassing in the
+thought of a /tete-a-tete/.
+
+"Lady Florence," said Ernest, "there is no one in the world with whom I
+can confer so cheerfully as with you.  I am almost glad of Cleveland's
+absence, for, with all his amiable and fine qualities, 'the world is too
+much with him,' and we do not argue from the same data.  Pardon my
+prelude--now to my position.  I have received a letter from Mr. ------.
+That statesman, whom none but those acquainted with the chivalrous
+beauty of his nature can understand or appreciate, sees before him the
+most brilliant career that ever opened in this country to a public man
+not born an aristocrat.  He has asked me to form one of the new
+administration that he is about to create: the place offered to me is
+above my merits, nor suited to what I have yet done, though, perhaps, it
+be suited to what I may yet do.  I make that qualification, for you
+know," added Ernest, with a proud smile, "that I am sanguine and
+self-confident."
+
+"You accept the proposal?"
+
+"Nay,--should I not reject it?  Our politics are the same only for the
+moment, our ultimate objects are widely different.  To serve with Mr.
+------, I must make an unequal compromise--abandon nine opinions to
+promote one.  Is not this a capitulation of that great citadel, one's
+own conscience?  No man will call me inconsistent, for, in public life,
+to agree with another on a party question is all that is required; the
+thousand questions not yet ripened, and lying dark and concealed in the
+future, are not inquired into and divined; but I own I shall deem myself
+worse than inconsistent.  For this is my dilemma,--if I use this noble
+spirit merely to advance one object, and then desert him where he halts,
+I am treacherous to him; if I halt with him, but one of my objects
+effected, I am treacherous to myself.  Such are my views.  It is with
+pain I arrive at them, for, at first, my heart beat with a selfish
+ambition."
+
+"You are right, you are right," exclaimed Florence, with glowing cheeks;
+"how could I doubt you?  I comprehend the sacrifice you make; for a
+proud thing is it to soar above the predictions of foes in that palpable
+road to honour which the world's hard eyes can see, and the world's cold
+heart can measure; but prouder is it to feel that you have never
+advanced one step to the goal, which remembrance would retract.  No, my
+friend, wait your time, confident that it must come, when conscience and
+ambition can go hand-in-hand--when the broad objects of a luminous and
+enlarged policy lie before you like a chart, and you can calculate every
+step of the way without peril of being lost.  Ah, let them still call
+loftiness of purpose and whiteness of soul the dreams of a
+theorist,--even if they be so, the Ideal in this case is better than the
+Practical.  Meanwhile your position is not one to forfeit lightly.
+Before you is that throne in literature which it requires no doubtful
+step to win, if you have, as I believe, the mental power to attain it.
+An ambition that may indeed be relinquished, if a more troubled career
+can better achieve those public purposes at which both letters and
+policy should aim, but which is not to be surrendered for the rewards of
+a place-man, or the advancement of a courtier."
+
+It was while uttering these noble and inspiring sentiments, that
+Florence Lascelles suddenly acquired in Ernest's eyes a loveliness with
+which they had not before invested her.
+
+"Oh," he said, as, with a sudden impulse, he lifted her hand to his
+lips, "blessed be the hour in which you gave me your friendship!  These
+are the thoughts I have longed to hear from living lips, when I have
+been tempted to believe patriotism a delusion, and virtue but a name."
+
+Lady Florence heard, and her whole form seemed changed,--she was no
+longer the majestic sibyl, but the attached, timorous, delighted woman.
+
+It so happened that in her confusion she dropped from her hand the
+flower Maltravers had given her, and involuntarily glad of a pretext to
+conceal her countenance, she stooped to take it from the ground.  In so
+doing, a letter fell from her bosom--and Maltravers, as he bent forwards
+to forestall her own movement, saw that the direction was to himself,
+and in the handwriting of his unknown correspondent.  He seized the
+letter, and gazed in flattered and entranced astonishment, first on the
+writing, next on the detected writer.  Florence grew deadly pale, and
+covering her face with her hands, burst into tears.
+
+"O fool that I was," cried Ernest, in the passion of the moment, "not to
+know--not to have felt that there were not two Florences in the world!
+But if the thought had crossed me, I would not have dared to harbour
+it."
+
+"Go, go," sobbed Florence; "leave me, in mercy leave me!"
+
+"Not till you bid me rise," said Ernest, in emotion scarcely less deep
+than hers, as he sank on his knee at her feet.
+
+Need I go on?--When they left that spot, a soft confession had been
+made--deep vows interchanged, and Ernest Maltravers was the accepted
+suitor of Florence Lascelles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  "A hundred fathers would in my situation tell you that, as
+   you are of noble extraction, you should marry a nobleman.
+   But I do not say so.  I will not sacrifice my child to any
+   prejudice."
+               KOTZEBUE.  /Lover's Vows/.
+
+  "Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all
+   Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man."
+               SHAKSPEARE.  /Henry VI./
+
+  "Oh, how this spring of love resembleth
+   Th' uncertain glory of an April day;
+   Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
+   And by and by a cloud takes all away!"
+               SHAKSPEARE.  /The Two Gentlemen of Verona/.
+
+WHEN Maltravers was once more in his solitary apartment, he felt as in a
+dream.  He had obeyed an impulse, irresistible, perhaps, but one with
+which the /conscience of his heart/ was not satisfied.  A voice
+whispered to him, "Thou hast deceived her and thyself--thou dost not
+love her!"  In vain he recalled her beauty, her grace, her genius--her
+singular and enthusiastic passion for himself--the voice still replied,
+"Thou dost not love.  Bid farewell for ever to thy fond dreams of a life
+more blessed than that of mortals.  From the stormy sea of the future
+are blotted out eternally for thee--Calypso and her Golden Isle.  Thou
+canst no more paint on the dim canvas of thy desires the form of her
+with whom thou couldst dwell for ever.  Thou hast been unfaithful to
+thine own ideal--thou hast given thyself for ever and for ever to
+another--thou hast renounced hope--thou must live as in a prison, with a
+being with whom thou hast not the harmony of love."
+
+"No matter," said Maltravers, almost alarmed, and starting from these
+thoughts, "I am betrothed to one who loves me--it is folly and dishonour
+to repent and to repine.  I have gone through the best years of youth
+without finding the Egeria with whom the cavern would be sweeter than a
+throne.  Why live to the grave a vain and visionary Nympholept?  Out of
+the real world could I have made a nobler choice?"
+
+While Maltravers thus communed with himself, Lady Florence passed into
+her father's dressing-room, and there awaited his return from London.
+She knew his worldly views--she knew also the pride of her affianced,
+and, she felt that she alone could mediate between the two.
+
+Lord Saxingham at last returned--busy, bustling, important, and
+good-humoured as usual.  "Well, Flory, well?--glad to see you--quite
+blooming, I declare,--never saw you with such a colour--monstrous like
+me, certainly.  We always had fine complexions and fine eyes in our
+family.  But I'm rather late--first bell rung--we /ci-devant jeunes
+hommes/ are rather long dressing, and you are not dressed yet, I see."
+
+"My dearest father, I wished to speak with you on a matter of much
+importance."
+
+"Do you?--what, immediately?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well--what is it?--your Slingsby property, I suppose."
+
+"No, my dear father--pray sit down and hear me patiently."
+
+Lord Saxingham began to be both alarmed and curious--he seated himself
+in silence, and looked anxiously in the face of his daughter.
+
+"You have always been very indulgent to me," commenced Florence, with a
+half smile, "and I have had my own way more than most young ladies.
+Believe me, my dear father.  I am most grateful not only for your
+affection but your esteem.  I have been a strange wild girl, but I am
+now about to reform; and as the first step, I ask your consent to give
+myself a preceptor and a guide--"
+
+"A what!" cried Lord Saxingham.
+
+"In other words, I am about to--to--well, the truth must out--to marry."
+
+"Has the Duke of ------ been here to-day?"
+
+"Not that I know of.  But it is no duke to whom I have promised my
+hand--it is a nobler and rarer dignity that has caught my ambition.  Mr.
+Maltravers has--"
+
+"Mr. Maltravers!--Mr. Devil!--the girl's mad!--don't talk to me, child,
+I won't consent to any such nonsense.  A country gentleman--very
+respectable, very clever, and all that, but it's no use talking--my
+mind's made up.  With your fortune, too!"
+
+"My dear father, I will not marry without your consent, though my
+fortune is settled on me, and I am of age."
+
+"There's a good child--and now let me dress--we shall be late."
+
+"No, not yet," said Lady Florence, throwing her arm carelessly round her
+father's neck--"I shall marry Mr. Maltravers, but it will be with your
+full approval.  Just consider, if I married the Duke of ------, he would
+expect all my fortune, such as it is.  Ten thousand a year is at my
+disposal; if I marry Mr. Maltravers, it will be settled on you--I always
+meant it--it is a poor return for your kindness, your indulgence--but it
+will show that your own Flory is not ungrateful."
+
+"I won't hear."
+
+"Stop--listen to reason.  You are not rich--you are entitled but to a
+small pension if you ever resign office, and your official salary, I
+have often heard you say, does not prevent you from being embarrassed.
+To whom should a daughter give from her superfluities but to a
+parent?--from whom should a parent receive, but from a child, who can
+never repay his love?--Ah, this is nothing; but you--you who have never
+crossed her lightest whim--do not you destroy all the hopes of happiness
+your Florence can ever form."
+
+Florence wept, and Lord Saxingham, who was greatly moved, let fall a few
+tears also.  Perhaps it is too much to say that the pecuniary part of
+the proffered arrangement entirely won him over; but still the way it
+was introduced softened his heart.  He possibly thought that it was
+better to have a good and grateful daughter in a country gentleman's
+wife, than a sullen and thankless one in a duchess.  However that may
+be, certain it is, that before Lord Saxingham began his toilet, he
+promised to make no obstacle to the marriage, and all he asked in return
+was, that at least three months (but that, indeed, the lawyers would
+require) should elapse before it took place; and on this understanding
+Florence left him, radiant and joyous as Flora herself, when the sun of
+spring makes the world a garden.  Never had she thought so little of her
+beauty, and never had it seemed so glorious, as that happy evening.  But
+Maltravers was pale and thoughtful, and Florence in vain sought his eyes
+during the dinner, which seemed to her insufferably long.  Afterwards,
+however, they met and conversed apart the rest of the evening; and the
+beauty of Florence began to produce upon Ernest's heart its natural
+effect; and that evening--ah, how Florence treasured the remembrance of
+every hour, every minute of its annals!
+
+It would have been amusing to witness the short conversation between
+Lord Saxingham and Maltravers, when the latter sought the earl at night
+in his lordship's room.  To Lord Saxingham's surprise, not a word did
+Maltravers utter of his own subordinate pretensions to Lady Florence's
+hand.  Coldly, drily, and almost haughtily, did he make the formal
+proposals, "as if [as Lord Saxingham afterwards said to Ferrers] the man
+were doing me the highest possible honour in taking my daughter, the
+beauty of London, with fifty thousand a year, off my hands."  But this
+was quite Maltravers!--if he had been proposing to the daughter of a
+country curate, without a sixpence, he would have been the humblest of
+the humble.  The earl was embarrassed and discomposed--he was almost
+awed by the Siddons-like countenance and Coriolanus-like air of his
+future son-in-law-he even hinted nothing of the compromise as to time
+which he had made with his daughter.  He thought it better to leave it
+to Lady Florence to arrange that matter.  They shook hands frigidly and
+parted.  Maltravers went next into Cleveland's room, and communicated
+all to the delighted old man, whose congratulations were so fervid that
+Maltravers felt it would be a sin not to fancy himself the happiest, man
+in the world.  That night he wrote his refusal of the appointment
+offered him.
+
+The next day, Lord Saxingham went to his office in Downing Street as
+usual, and Lady Florence and Ernest found an opportunity to ramble
+through the grounds alone.
+
+There it was that occurred those confessions, sweet alike to utter and
+to hear.  Then did Florence speak of her early years--of her self-formed
+and solitary mind--of her youthful dreams and reveries.  Nothing around
+her to excite interest or admiration, or the more romantic, the higher,
+or the softer qualities of her nature, she turned to contemplation and
+to books.  It is the combination of the faculties with the affections,
+exiled from action, and finding no worldly vent, which produces Poetry,
+the child of passion and of thought.  Hence, before the real cares of
+existence claim them, the young, who are abler yet lonelier than their
+fellows, are nearly always poets; and Florence was a poetess.  In minds
+like this, the first book that seems to embody and represent their own
+most cherished and beloved trains of sentiment and ideas, ever creates a
+reverential and deep enthusiasm.  The lonely, and proud, and melancholy
+soul of Maltravers, which made itself visible in all his creations,
+became to Florence like a revealer of the secrets of her own nature.
+She conceived an intense and mysterious interest in the man whose mind
+exercised so pervading a power over her own.  She made herself
+acquainted with his pursuits, his career--she fancied she found a
+symmetry and harmony between the actual being and the breathing
+genius--she imagined she understood what seemed dark and obscure to
+others.  He whom she had never seen grew to her a never-absent friend.
+His ambition, his reputation, were to her like a possession of her own.
+So at length, in the folly of her young romance, she wrote to him, and
+dreaming of no discovery, anticipating no result, the habit once
+indulged became to her that luxury which writing for the eye of the
+world is to an author oppressed with the burthen of his own thoughts.
+At length she saw him, and he did not destroy her illusion.  She might
+have recovered from the spell if she had found him ready at once to
+worship at her shrine.  The mixture of reserve and frankness--frankness
+of language, reserve of manner--which belonged to Maltravers, piqued
+her.  Her vanity became the auxiliary to her imagination.  At length
+they met at Cleveland's house; their intercourse became more
+unrestrained--their friendship was established, and she discovered that
+she had wilfully implicated her happiness in indulging her dreams; yet
+even then she believed that Maltravers loved her, despite his silence
+upon the subject of love.  His manner, his words bespoke his interest in
+her, and his voice was ever soft when he spoke to women; for he had much
+of the old chivalric respect and tenderness for the sex.  What was
+general it was natural that she should apply individually--she who had
+walked the world but to fascinate and to conquer.  It was probable that
+her great wealth and social position imposed a check on the delicate
+pride of Maltravers--she hoped so--she believed it--yet she felt her
+danger, and her own pride at last took alarm.  In such a moment she had
+resumed the character of the unknown correspondent--she had written to
+Maltravers--addressed her letter to his own house, and meant the next
+day to have gone to London, and posted it there.  In this letter she had
+spoken of his visit to Cleveland, of his position with herself.  She
+exhorted him, if he loved her, to confess, and if not, to fly.  She had
+written artfully and eloquently--she was desirous of expediting her own
+fate; and then, with that letter in her bosom, she had met Maltravers,
+and the reader has learned the rest.  Something of all this the blushing
+and happy Florence now revealed: and when she ended with uttering the
+woman's soft fear that she had been too bold, is it wonderful that
+Maltravers, clasping her to his bosom, felt the gratitude, and the
+delighted vanity, which seemed even to himself like love?  And into love
+those feelings rapidly and deliciously will merge, if fate and accident
+permit!
+
+And now they were by the side of the water; and the sun was gently
+setting as on the eve before.  It was about the same hour, the fairest
+of an autumn day; none were near--the slope of the hill hid the house
+from their view.  Had they been in the desert they could not have been
+more alone.  It was not silence that breathed around them, as they sat
+on that bench with the broad beech spreading over them its trembling
+canopy of leaves;--but those murmurs of living nature which are sweeter
+than silence itself--the songs of birds--the tinkling bell of the sheep
+on the opposite bank--the wind sighing through the trees, and the gentle
+heaving of the glittering waves that washed the odorous reed and
+water-lily at their feet.  They had both been for some moments silent;
+and Florence now broke the pause, but in tones more low than usual.
+
+"Ah!" said she, turning towards him, "these hours are happier than we
+can find in that crowded world whither your destiny must call us.  For
+me, ambition seems for ever at an end.  I have found all; I am no longer
+haunted with the desire of gaining a vague something,--a shadowy empire,
+that we call fame or power.  The sole thought that disturbs the calm
+current of my soul, is the fear to lose a particle of the rich
+possession I have gained."
+
+"May your fears ever be as idle!"
+
+"And you really love me!  I repeat to myself ever and ever that one
+phrase.  I could once have borne to lose you, now it would be my death.
+I despaired of ever being loved for myself; my wealth was a fatal dower;
+I suspected avarice in every vow, and saw the base world lurk at the
+bottom of every heart that offered itself at my shrine.  But you,
+Ernest,--you, I feel, never could weigh gold in the balance--and you--if
+you love--love me for myself."
+
+"And I shall love thee more with every hour."
+
+"I know not that: I dread that you will love me less when you know me
+more.  I fear I shall seem to you exacting--I am jealous already.  I was
+jealous even of Lady T------, when I saw you by her side this morning.
+I would have your every look--monopolise your every word."
+
+This confession did not please Maltravers, as it might have done if he
+had been more deeply in love.  Jealousy, in a woman of so vehement and
+imperious a nature, was indeed a passion to be dreaded.
+
+"Do not say so, dear Florence," said he, with a very grave smile; "for
+love should have implicit confidence as its bond and nature--and
+jealousy is doubt, and doubt is the death of love."
+
+A shade passed over Florence's too expressive face, and she sighed
+heavily.
+
+It was at this time that Maltravers, raising his eyes, saw the form of
+Lumley Ferrers approaching towards them from the opposite end of the
+terrace: at the same instant, a dark cloud crept over the sky, the
+waters seemed overcast and the breeze fell: a chill and strange
+presentiment of evil shot across Ernest's heart, and, like many
+imaginative persons, he was unconsciously superstitious as to
+presentiments.
+
+"We are no longer alone," said he, rising; "your cousin has doubtless
+learned our engagement, and comes to congratulate your suitor."
+
+"Tell me," he continued musingly, as they walked on to meet Ferrers,
+"are you very partial to Lumley? what think you of his character?--it is
+one that perplexes me; sometimes I think it has changed since we parted
+in Italy--sometimes I think it has not changed, but ripened."
+
+"Lumley, I have known from a child," replied Florence, "and see much to
+admire and like in him; I admire his boldness and candour; his scorn of
+the world's littleness and falsehood; I like his good-nature--his
+gaiety--and fancy his heart better than it may seem to the superficial
+observer."
+
+"Yet he appears to me selfish and unprincipled."
+
+"It is from a fine contempt for the vices and follies of men that he has
+contracted the habit of consulting his own resolute will--and, believing
+everything done in this noisy stage of action a cheat, he has
+accommodated his ambition to the fashion.  Though without what is termed
+genius, he will obtain a distinction and power that few men of genius
+arrive at."
+
+"Because /genius/ is essentially honest," said Maltravers.  "However,
+you teach me to look on him more indulgently.  I suspect the real
+frankness of men whom I know to be hypocrites in public life--but,
+perhaps, I judge by too harsh a standard."
+
+"Third persons," said Ferrers, as he now joined them, "are seldom
+unwelcome in the country; and I flatter myself that I am the exact thing
+wanting to complete the charm of this beautiful landscape."
+
+"You are ever modest, my cousin."
+
+"It is my weak side, I know; but I shall improve with years and wisdom.
+What say you, Maltravers?" and Ferrers passed his arm affectionately
+through Ernest's.
+
+"By the by, I am too familiar--I am sunk in the world.  I am a thing to
+be sneered at by you old-family people.  I am next heir to a bran-new
+Brummagem peerage.  'Gad, I feel brassy already!"
+
+"What, is Mr. Templeton--"
+
+"Mr. Templeton is no more; he is defunct, extinguished--out of the ashes
+rises the phoenix Lord Vargrave.  We had thought of a more sounding
+title; De Courval has a nobler sound,--but my good uncle has nothing of
+the Norman about him: so we dropped the De as ridiculous--Vargrave is
+euphonious and appropriate.  My uncle has a manor of that name--Baron
+Vargrave of Vargrave."
+
+"Ah--I congratulate you."
+
+"Thank you.  Lady Vargrave may destroy all my hopes yet.  But nothing
+venture, nothing have.  My uncle will be gazetted to-day.  Poor man, he
+will be delighted; and as he certainly owes it much to me, he will, I
+suppose, be very grateful--or hate me ever afterwards--that is a toss
+up.  A benefit conferred is a complete hazard between the thumb of pride
+and the forefinger of affection.  Heads gratitude, tails hatred!  There,
+that's a simile in the fashion of the old writers: 'Well of English
+undefiled!' humph!"
+
+"So that beautiful child is Mrs. Templeton's, or rather Lady Vargrave's,
+daughter by a former marriage?" said Maltravers, abstractedly.
+
+"Yes, it is astonishing how fond he is of her.  Pretty little
+creature--confoundedly artful though.  By the way, Maltravers, we had an
+unexpectedly stormy night the last of the session--strong
+division--ministers hard pressed.  I made quite a good speech for them.
+I suppose, however, there will be some change--the moderates will be
+taken in.  Perhaps by next session I may congratulate you."
+
+Ferrers looked hard at Maltravers while he spoke.  But Ernest replied
+coldly, and evasively, and they were now joined by a party of idlers,
+lounging along the lawn in expectation of the first dinner-bell.
+Cleveland was in high consultation about the proper spot for a new
+fountain; and he summoned Maltravers to give his opinion whether it
+should spring from the centre of a flower-bed or beneath the drooping
+shade of a large willow.  While this interesting discussion was going
+on, Ferrers drew aside his cousin, and pressing her hand affectionately,
+said, in a soft and tender voice:
+
+"My dear Florence--for in such a time permit me to be familiar--I
+understand from Lord Saxingham, whom I met in London, that you are
+engaged to Maltravers.  Busy as I was, I could not rest without coming
+hither to offer my best and most earnest wish for your happiness.  I may
+seem a careless, I am considered a selfish, person; but my heart is warm
+to those who really interest it.  And never did brother offer up for the
+welfare of a beloved sister prayers more anxious and fond, than those
+that poor Lumley Ferrers, breathes for Florence Lascelles."
+
+Florence was startled and melted--the whole tone and manner of Lumley
+were so different from those he usually assumed.  She warmly returned
+the pressure of his hand, and thanked him briefly, but with emotion.
+
+"No one is great and good enough for you, Florence," continued
+Ferrers--"no one.  But I admire your disinterested and generous choice.
+Maltravers and I have not been friends lately; but I respect him, as all
+must.  He has noble qualities, and he has great ambition.  In addition
+to the deep and ardent love that you cannot fail to inspire, he will owe
+you eternal gratitude.  In this aristocratic country, your hand secures
+to him the most brilliant fortunes, the most proud career.  His talents
+will now be measured by a very different standard.  His merits will not
+pass through any subordinate grades, but leap at once into the highest
+posts; and, as he is even more proud than ambitious, how he must bless
+one who raises him, without effort, into positions of eminent command!"
+
+"Oh, he does not think of such worldly advantages--he, the too pure, the
+too refined!" said Florence, with trembling eagerness.  "He has no
+avarice, nothing mercenary in his nature!"
+
+"No; there you indeed do him justice,--there is not a particle of
+baseness in his mind--I did not say there was.  The very greatness of
+his aspirations, his indignant and scornful pride, lift him above the
+thought of your wealth, your rank,--except as means to an end."
+
+"You mistake still," said Florence, faintly smiling, but turning pale.
+
+"No," resumed Ferrers, not appearing to hear her, and as if pursuing his
+own thoughts.  "I always predicted that Maltravers would make a
+distinguished connection in marriage.  He would not permit himself to
+love the lowborn or the poor.  His affections are in his pride as much
+as in his heart.  He is a great creature--you have judged wisely--and
+may Heaven bless you!"
+
+With these words, Ferrers left her, and Florence, when she descended to
+dinner, wore a moody and clouded brow.  Ferrers stayed three days at the
+house.  He was peculiarly cordial to Maltravers, and spoke little to
+Florence.  But that little never failed to leave upon her mind a jealous
+and anxious irritability, to which she yielded with morbid facility.  In
+order perfectly to understand Florence Lascelles, it must be remembered
+that, with all her dazzling qualities, she was not what is called a
+lovable person.  A certain hardness in her disposition, even as a child,
+had prevented her winding into the hearts of those around her.  Deprived
+of her mother's care--having little or no intercourse with children of
+her own age--brought up with a starched governess, or female relations,
+poor and proud--she never had contracted the softness of manner which
+the reciprocation of household affections usually produces.  With a
+haughty consciousness of her powers, her birth, her position, advantages
+always dinned into her ear, she grew up solitary, unsocial, and
+imperious.  Her father was rather proud than fond of her--her servants
+did not love her--she had too little consideration for others, too
+little blandness and suavity to be loved by inferiors--she was too
+learned and too stern to find pleasure in the conversation and society
+of young ladies of her own age:--she had no friends.  Now, having really
+strong affection, she felt all this, but rather with resentment than
+grief--she longed to be loved, but did not seek to be so--she felt as if
+it was her fate not to be loved--she blamed Fate, not herself.
+
+When, with all the proud, pure, and generous candour of her nature, she
+avowed to Ernest her love for him, she naturally expected the most
+ardent and passionate return; nothing less could content her.  But the
+habit and experience of all the past made her eternally suspicious that
+she was not loved; it was wormwood and poison to her to fancy that
+Maltravers had ever considered her advantages of fortune, except as a
+bar to his pretensions and a check on his passion.  It was the same
+thing to her, whether it was the pettiest avarice or the loftiest
+aspirations that actuated her lover, if he had been actuated in his
+heart by any sentiment but love; and Ferrers, to whose eye her foibles
+were familiar, knew well how to make his praises of Ernest arouse
+against Ernest all her exacting jealousies and irritable doubts.
+
+"It is strange," said he, one evening, as he was conversing with
+Florence, "how complete and triumphant a conquest you have effected over
+Ernest!  Will you believe it?--he conceived a prejudice against you when
+he first saw you--he even said that you were made to be admired, not to
+be loved."
+
+"Ha!--did he so?--true, true--he has almost said the same thing to me."
+
+"But now how he must love you!  Surely he has all the signs."
+
+"And what are the signs, most learned Lumley?" said Florence, forcing a
+smile.
+
+"Why, in the first place, you will doubtless observe that he never takes
+his eyes from you--with whomsoever he converses, whatever his
+occupation, those eyes, restless and pining, wander around for one
+glance from you."
+
+Florence sighed, and looked up--at the other end of the room, her lover
+was conversing with Cleveland, and his eyes never wandered in search of
+her.
+
+Ferrers did not seem to notice this practical contradiction of his
+theory, but went on.
+
+"Then surely his whole character is changed--that brow has lost its calm
+majesty, that deep voice its assured and tranquil tone.  Has he not
+become humble, and embarrassed, and fretful, living only on your smile,
+reproachful if you look upon another--sorrowful if your lip be less
+smiling--a thing of doubt, and dread, and trembling agitation--slave to
+a shadow--no longer lord of the creation?  Such is love, such is the
+love you should inspire, such is the love Maltravers is capable of--for
+I have seen him testify it to another.  "But," added Lumley, quickly,
+and as if afraid he had said too much, "Lord Saxingham is looking out
+for me to make up his whist-table.  I go to-morrow--when shall you be in
+town?"
+
+"In the course of the week," said poor Florence mechanically; and Lumley
+walked away.
+
+In another moment, Maltravers, who had been more observant than he
+seemed, joined her where she sat.
+
+"Dear Florence," said he, tenderly, "you look pale--I fear you are not
+so well this evening."
+
+"No affectation of an interest you do not feel, pray," said Florence,
+with a scornful lip but swimming eyes.
+
+"Do not feel, Florence!"
+
+"It is the first time, at least, that you have observed whether I am
+well or ill.  But it is no matter."
+
+"My dear Florence,--why this tone?--how have I offended you?  Has Lumley
+said--"
+
+"Nothing but in your praise.  Oh, be not afraid, you are one of those of
+whom all speak highly.  But do not let me detain you here; let us join
+our host--you have left him alone."
+
+Lady Florence waited for no reply, nor did Maltravers attempt to detain
+her.  He looked pained, and when she turned round to catch a glance,
+that she hoped would be reproachful, he was gone.  Lady Florence became
+nervous and uneasy, talked she knew not what, and laughed hysterically.
+She, however, deceived Cleveland into the notion that she was in the
+best possible spirits.  By and by she rose, and passed through the suite
+of rooms: her heart was with Maltravers--still he was not visible.  At
+length she entered the conservatory, and there she observed him, through
+the open casements, walking slowly, with folded arms, upon the moonlit
+lawn.  There was a short struggle in her breast between woman's pride
+and woman's love; the last conquered, and she joined him.
+
+"Forgive me, Ernest," she said, extending her hand, "I was to blame."
+
+Ernest kissed the fair hand, and answered touchingly:
+
+"Florence, you have the power to wound me, be forbearing in its
+exercise.  Heaven knows that I would not, from the vain desire of
+showing command over you, inflict upon you a single pang.  Ah! do not
+fancy that in lovers' quarrels there is any sweetness that compensates
+the sting."
+
+"I told you I was too exacting, Ernest.  I told you you would not love
+me so well when you knew me better."
+
+"And were a false prophetess.  Florence, every day, every hour I love
+you more--better than I once thought I could."
+
+"Then," cried this wayward girl, anxious to pain herself, "then once you
+did not love me?"
+
+"Florence, I will be candid--I did not.  You are now rapidly obtaining
+an empire over me, greater than my reason should allow.  But, beware: if
+my love be really a possession you desire,--beware how you arm my reason
+against you.  Florence, I am a proud man.  My very consciousness of the
+more splendid alliances you could form renders me less humble a lover
+than you might find in others.  I were not worthy of you if I were not
+tenacious of my self-respect."
+
+"Ah!" said Florence, to whose heart these words went home, "forgive me
+but this once.  I shall not forgive myself so soon."
+
+And Ernest drew her to his heart, and felt that, with all her faults, a
+woman whom he feared he could not render as happy as her sacrifices to
+him deserved was becoming very dear to him.  In his heart he knew that
+she was not formed to render him happy; but that was not his thought,
+his fear.  Her love had rooted out all thought of self from that
+generous breast.  His only anxiety was to requite her.
+
+They walked along the sward, silent, thoughtful; and Florence
+melancholy, yet blessed.
+
+"That serene heaven, those lovely stars," said Maltravers at last, "do
+they not preach to us the Philosophy of Peace?  Do they not tell us how
+much of calm belongs to the dignity of man, and the sublime essence of
+the soul.  Petty distractions and self-wrought cares are not congenial
+to our real nature; their very disturbance is a proof that they are at
+war with our natures.  Ah, sweet Florence, let us learn from yon skies,
+over which, in the faith of the poets of old, brooded the wings of
+primaeval and serenest Love, what earthly love should be,--a thing pure
+as light, and peaceful as immortality, watching over the stormy world,
+that it shall survive, and high above the clouds and vapours that roll
+below.  Let little minds introduce into the holiest of affections all
+the bitterness and tumult of common life!  Let us love as beings who
+will one day be inhabitants of the stars!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  "A slippery and subtle knave; a finder out of occasions, that
+   has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages."--/Othello/.
+
+  "Knavery's plain face is never seen till used."-/-Ibid./
+
+"You see, my dear Lumley," said Lord Saxingham, as the next day the two
+kinsmen were on their way to London in the earl's chariot, "you see that
+at the best this marriage of Flory's is a cursed bore."
+
+"Why, indeed, it has its disadvantages.  Maltravers is a gentleman and a
+man of genius; but gentlemen are plentiful, and his genius only tells
+against us, since he is not even of our politics."
+
+"Exactly--my own son-in-law voting against me!"
+
+"A practicable, reasonable man would change; not so Maltravers--and all
+the estates, and all the parliamentary influence, and all the wealth
+that ought to go with the family and with the party, go out of the
+family and against the party.  You are quite right, my dear lord--it is
+a cursed bore."
+
+"And she might have had the Duke of ------, a man with a rental of
+L100,000 a year.  It is too ridiculous.  This Maltravers, d----d
+disagreeable fellow, too, eh?"
+
+"Stiff and stately--much changed for the worse of late years--grown
+conceited and set up."
+
+"Do you know, Lumley, I would rather, of the two, have had you for my
+son-in-law?"
+
+Lumley half started.  "Are you serious, my lord?  I have not Ernest's
+fortune--I cannot make such settlements: my lineage, too, at least on my
+mother's side, is less ancient."
+
+"Oh, as to settlements, Flory's fortune ought to be settled on
+herself,--and as compared with that fortune, what could Mr. Maltravers
+pretend to settle?  Neither she nor any children she may have could want
+his L4,000 a year, if he settled it all.  As for family, connections
+tell more nowadays than Norman descent,--and for the rest, you are
+likely to be old Templeton's heir, to have a peerage (a large sum of
+ready money is always useful)--are rising in the House--one of our own
+set--will soon be in office--and, flattery apart, a devilish good fellow
+into the bargain.  Oh, I would sooner a thousand times that Flory had
+taken a fancy to you."
+
+Lumley Ferrers bowed his head but said nothing.  He fell into a reverie,
+and Lord Saxingham took up his official red box, became deep in its
+contents, and forgot all about the marriage of his daughter.
+
+Lumley pulled the check-string as the carriage entered Pall Mall, and
+desired to be set down at "The Travellers."  While Lord Saxingham was
+borne on to settle the affairs of the nation, not being able to settle
+those of his own household, Ferrers was inquiring the address of
+Castruccio Cesarini.  The porter was unable to give it him.  The Signor
+generally called every day for his notes, but no one at the club knew
+where he lodged.  Ferrers wrote, and left with the porter a line
+requesting Cesarini to call on him as soon as possible, and he bent his
+way to his house in Great George Street.  He went straight into his
+library, unlocked his escritoire, and took out that letter which, the
+reader will remember, Maltravers had written to Cesarini, and which
+Lumley had secured; carefully did he twice read over this effusion, and
+the second time his face brightened and his eyes sparkled.  It is now
+time to lay this letter before the reader: it ran thus:--
+
+
+               /"Private and confidential."/
+
+"MY DEAR CESARINI:
+
+"The assurance of your friendly feelings is most welcome to me.  In much
+of what you say of marriage, I am inclined, though with reluctance, to
+agree.  As to Lady Florence herself, few persons are more calculated to
+dazzle, perhaps to fascinate.  But is she a person to make a home
+happy--to sympathise where she has been accustomed to command--to
+comprehend, and to yield to the waywardness and irritability common to
+our fanciful and morbid race--to content herself with the homage of a
+single heart?  I do not know her enough to decide the question; but I
+know her enough to feel deep solicitude and anxiety for your happiness,
+if centred in a nature so imperious and so vain.  But you will remind me
+of her fortune, her station.  You will say that such are the sources
+from which, to an ambitious mind, happiness may well be drawn!  Alas! I
+fear that the man who marries Lady Florence must indeed confine his
+dreams of felicity to those harsh and disappointing realities.  But,
+Cesarini, these are not words which, were we more intimate, I would
+address to you.  I doubt the reality of those affections which you
+ascribe to her and suppose devoted to yourself.  She is evidently fond
+of conquest.  She sports with the victims she makes.  Her vanity dupes
+others, perhaps to be duped itself at last.  I will not say more to you.
+
+     "Yours,
+          E. MALTRAVERS."
+
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Ferrers, as he threw down the letter, and rubbed his
+hands with delight.  "I little thought, when I schemed for this letter,
+that chance would make it so inestimably serviceable.  There is less to
+alter than I thought for--the clumsiest botcher in the world could
+manage it.  Let me look again.  Hem, hem--the first phrase to alter is
+this: 'I know her enough to feel deep solicitude and anxiety for /your/
+happiness if centred in a nature so imperious and vain'--scratch out
+'your,' and put 'my.' All the rest good, good--till we come to
+'affections which you ascribe to her, and suppose devoted to
+/yourself/'--for '/yourself/' write '/myself/'--the rest will do.  Now,
+then, the date--we must change it to the present month, and the work is
+done.  I wish that Italian blockhead would come.  If I can but once make
+an irreparable breach between her and Maltravers, I think I cannot fail
+of securing his place; her pique, her resentment, will hurry her into
+taking the first who offers, by way of revenge.  And by Jupiter, even if
+I fail (which I am sure I shall not), it will be something to keep Flory
+as lady paramount for a duke of our own party.  I shall gain immensely
+by such a connection; but I lose everything and gain nothing by her
+marrying Maltravers--of opposite politics too--whom I begin to hate like
+poison.  But no duke shall have her--Florence Ferrers, the only
+alliteration I ever liked--yet it would sound rough in poetry."
+
+Lumley then deliberately drew towards him his inkstand--"No
+penknife!--Ah, true, I never mend pens--sad waste--must send out for
+one."  He rang the bell, ordered a penknife to be purchased, and the
+servant was still out when a knock at the door was heard, and in a
+minute more Cesarini entered.
+
+"Ah," said Lumley, assuming a melancholy air, "I am glad that you are
+arrived; you will excuse my having written to you so unceremoniously.
+You received my note--sit down, pray--and how are you? you look
+delicate--can I offer you anything?"
+
+"Wine," said Cesarini, laconically, "wine; your climate requires wine."
+
+Here the servant entered with the penknife, and was ordered to bring
+wine and sandwiches.  Lumley then conversed lightly on different matters
+till the wine appeared; he was rather surprised to observe Cesarini pour
+out and drink off glass upon glass, with an evident craving for the
+excitement.  When he had satisfied himself, he turned his dark eyes to
+Ferrers, and said, "You have news to communicate--I see it in your brow.
+I am now ready to hear all."
+
+"Well, then listen to me; you were right in your suspicions; jealousy is
+ever a true diviner.  I make no doubt Othello was quite right, and
+Desdemona was no better than she should be.  Maltravers has proposed to
+my cousin; and been accepted."
+
+Cesarini's complexion grew perfectly ghastly; his whole frame shook like
+a leaf--for a moment he seemed paralysed.
+
+"Curse him!" said he, at last, drawing a deep breath, and betwixt his
+grinded teeth--"curse him, from the depths of the heart he has broken!"
+
+"And after such a letter to you!--do you remember it?--here it is.  He
+warns you against Lady Florence, and then secures her to himself--is
+this treachery?"
+
+"Treachery black as hell!  I am an Italian," cried Cesarini, springing
+to his feet, and with all the passions of his climate in his face, "and
+I will be avenged!  Bankrupt in fortune, ruined in hopes, blasted in
+heart--I have still the godlike consolation of the desperate--I have
+revenge."
+
+"Will you call him out?" asked Lumley, musingly and calmly.  "Are you a
+dead shot?  If so, it is worth thinking about; if not, it is a
+mockery--your shot misses, his goes in the air, seconds interpose, and
+you both walk away devilish glad to get off so well.  Duels are humbug."
+
+"Mr. Ferrers," said Cesarini, fiercely, "this is not a matter of jest."
+
+"I do not make it a jest; and what is more, Cesarini," said Ferrers,
+with a concentrated energy far more commanding than the Italian's fury,
+"what is more, I so detest Maltravers, I am so stung by his cold
+superiority, so wroth with his success, so loathe the thought of his
+alliance, that I would cut off this hand to frustrate that marriage!  I
+do not jest, man; but I have method and sense in my hatred--it is our
+English way."
+
+Cesarini stared at the speaker gloomily, clenched his hand, and strode
+rapidly to and fro the room.
+
+"You would be avenged, so would I.  Now what shall be the means?" said
+Ferrers.
+
+"I will stab him to the heart--I will--"
+
+"Cease these tragic flights.  Nay, frown and stamp not; but sit down,
+and be reasonable, or leave me and act for yourself."
+
+"Sir," said Cesarini, with an eye that might have alarmed a man less
+resolute than Ferrers, "have a care how you presume on my distress."
+
+"You are in distress, and you refuse relief; you are bankrupt in
+fortune, and you rave like a poet, when you should be devising and
+plotting for the attainment of boundless wealth.  Revenge and ambition
+may both be yours; but they are prizes never won but by a cautious foot
+as well as a bold hand."
+
+"What would you have me do? and what but his life would content me?"
+
+"Take his life if you can--I have no objection--go and take it; only
+just observe this, that if you miss your aim, or he, being the stronger
+man, strike you down, you will be locked up in a madhouse for the next
+year or two at least; and that is not the place in which I should like
+to pass the winter--but as you will."
+
+"You!--you!--But what are you to me?  I will go.  Good day, sir."
+
+"Stay a moment," said Ferrers, when he saw Cesarini about to leave the
+room; "stay, take this chair, and listen to me--you had better--"
+
+Cesarini hesitated, and then, as it were, mechanically obeyed.
+
+"Read that letter which Maltravers wrote to you.  You have
+finished--well--now observe--if Florence sees that letter she will not
+and cannot marry the man who wrote it--you must show it to her."
+
+"Ah, my guardian angel, I see it all!  Yes, there are words in this
+letter no woman so proud could ever pardon.  Give me it again, I will go
+at once."
+
+"Pshaw!  You are too quick; you have not remarked that this letter was
+written five months ago, before Maltravers knew much of Lady Florence.
+He himself has confessed to her that he did not then love her--so much
+the more would she value the conquest she has now achieved.  Florence
+would smile at this letter, and say, 'Ah, he judges me differently
+now.'"
+
+"Are you seeking to madden me?  What do you mean?  Did you not just now
+say that, did she see that letter, she would never marry the writer?"
+
+"Yes, yes, but the letter must be altered.  We must erase the date;--we
+must date it from to-day;--to-day--Maltravers returns to-day.  We must
+suppose it written, not in answer to a letter from you, demanding his
+advice and opinion as to your marriage with Lady Florence, but in answer
+to a letter of yours in which you congratulate him on his approaching
+marriage to her.  By the substitution of one pronoun for another, in two
+places, the letter will read as well one way as another.  Read it again,
+and see; or stop, I will be the lecturer."
+
+Here Ferrers read over the letter, which, by the trifling substitutions
+he proposed, might indeed bear the character he wished to give it.
+
+"Does the light break in upon you now?" said Ferrers.  Are you prepared
+to go through a part that requires subtlety, delicacy, address, and,
+above all, self-control?--qualities that are the common attributes of
+your countrymen."
+
+"I will do all, fear me not.  It may be villainous, it may be base; but
+I care not, Maltravers shall not rival, master, eclipse me in all
+things."
+
+"Where are you lodging?"
+
+"Where?--out of town a little way."
+
+"Take up your home with me for a few days.  I cannot trust you out of my
+sight.  Send for your luggage; I have a room at your service."
+
+Cesarini at first refused; but a man who resolves on a crime feels the
+awe of solitude, and the necessity of a companion.  He went himself to
+bring his effects, and promised to return to dinner.
+
+"I must own," said Lumley, resettling himself at his desk, "this is the
+dirtiest trick that ever I played; but the glorious end sanctifies the
+paltry means.  After all, it is the mere prejudice of gentlemanlike
+education."
+
+A very few seconds, and with the aid of the knife to erase, and the pen
+to re-write, Ferrers completed his task, with the exception of the
+change of date, which, on second thoughts, he reserved as a matter to be
+regulated by circumstances.
+
+"I think I have hit off his /m/'s and /y/'s tolerably," said he,
+"considering I was not brought up to this sort of thing.  But the
+alteration would be visible on close inspection.  Cesarini must read the
+letter to her, then if she glances over it herself it will be with
+bewildered eyes and a dizzy brain.  Above all, he must not leave it with
+her, and must bind her to the closest secresy.  She is honourable and
+will keep her word; and so now that matter is settled.  I have just time
+before dinner to canter down to my uncle's and wish the old fellow joy."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  "And then my lord has much that he would state
+   All good to you."--CRABBE: /Tales of the Heart/.
+
+LORD VARGRAVE was sitting alone in his library, with his account-books
+before him.  Carefully did he cast up the various sums which, invested
+in various speculations, swelled his income.  The result seemed
+satisfactory--and the rich man threw down his pen with an air of
+triumph.
+
+"I will invest L120,000 in land--only L120,000.  I will not be tempted
+to sink more.  I will have a fine house--a house fitting for a
+nobleman--a fine old Elizabethan house--a house of historical interest.
+I must have woods and lakes--and a deer-park, above all.  Deer are very
+gentlemanlike things, very.  De Clifford's place is to be sold, I know;
+they ask too much for it, but ready money is tempting.  I can
+bargain--bargain, I am a good hand at a bargain.  Should I be now Lord
+Baron Vargrave, if I had always given people what they asked?  I will
+double my subscriptions to the Bible Society and the Philanthropic, and
+the building of new churches.  The world shall not say Richard Templeton
+does not deserve his greatness.  I will--Come in.  Who's there?--come
+in."
+
+The door gently opened--the meek face of the new peeress appeared.  "I
+disturb you--I beg your pardon--I--"
+
+"Come in, my dear, come in--I want to talk to you--I want to talk to
+your ladyship--sit down, pray."
+
+Lady Vargrave obeyed.
+
+"You see," said the peer, crossing his legs, and caressing his left foot
+with both hands, while he see-sawed his stately person to and fro in his
+chair--"you see that the honour conferred upon me will make a great
+change in our mode of life, Mrs. Temple--I mean Lady Vargrave.  This
+villa is all very well--my country house is not amiss for a country
+gentleman--but now we must support our rank.  The landed estate I
+already possess will go with the title--go to Lumley--I shall buy
+another at my own disposal, one that I can feel /thoroughly mine/--it
+shall be a splendid place, Lady Vargrave."
+
+"This place is splendid to me," said Lady Vargrave, timidly.
+
+"This place--nonsense--you must learn loftier ideas, Lady Vargrave; you
+are young, you can easily contract new habits, more, easily, perhaps,
+than myself.  You are naturally ladylike, though I say it--you have good
+taste, you don't talk much, you don't show your ignorance--quite right.
+You must be presented at court, Lady Vargrave--we must give great
+dinners, Lady Vargrave.  Balls are sinful, so is the opera, at least I
+fear so--yet an opera-box would be a proper appendage to your rank, Lady
+Vargrave."
+
+"My dear Mr. Templeton--"
+
+"Lord Vargrave, if your ladyship pleases."
+
+"I beg pardon.  May you live long to enjoy your honours; but I, my dear
+lord--I am not fit to share them: it is only in our quiet life that I
+can forget what--what I was.  You terrify me when you talk of
+court--of--"
+
+"Stuff, Lady Vargrave! stuff; we accustom ourselves to these things.  Do
+I look like a man who has stood behind a counter? rank is a glove that
+stretches to the hand that wears it.  And the child, dear child,--dear
+Evelyn, she shall be the admiration of London, the beauty, the heiress,
+the--oh, she will do me honour!"
+
+"She will, she will!" said Lady Vargrave, and the tears gushed from her
+eyes.
+
+Lord Vargrave was softened.
+
+"No mother ever deserved more from a child than you from Evelyn."
+
+"I would hope I have done my duty," said Lady Vargrave, drying her
+tears.
+
+"Papa, papa!" cried an impatient voice, tapping at the window, "come and
+play, papa--come and play at ball, papa!"
+
+And there, by the window, stood that beautiful child, glowing with
+health and mirth--her light hair tossed from her forehead, her sweet
+mouth dimpled with smiles.
+
+"My darling, go on the lawn,--don't over-exert yourself--you have not
+quite recovered that horrid sprain--I will join you immediately--bless
+you!"
+
+"Don't be long, papa--nobody plays so nicely as you do;" and, nodding
+and laughing from very glee, away scampered the young fairy.  Lord
+Vargrave turned to his wife.
+
+"What think you of my nephew--of Lumley?" said he, abruptly.
+
+"He seems all that is amiable, frank, and kind."
+
+Lord Vargrave's brow became thoughtful.  "I think so too," he said,
+after a, short pause; "and I hope you will approve of what I mean to do.
+You see Lumley was brought up to regard himself as my heir--I owe
+something to him, beyond the poor estate which goes with, but never can
+adequately support, /my/ title.  Family honours, hereditary rank, must
+be properly regarded.  But that dear girl--I shall leave her the bulk of
+my fortune.  Could we not unite the fortune and the title?  It would
+secure the rank to her, it would incorporate all my desires--all my
+duties."
+
+"But," said Lady Vargrave, with evident surprise, "if I understand you
+rightly, the disparity of years--"
+
+"And what then, what then, Lady Vargrave?  Is there no disparity of
+years between /us/?--a greater disparity than between Lumley and that
+tall girl.  Lumley is a mere youth, a youth still, five-and-thirty; he
+will be little more than forty when they marry; I was between fifty and
+sixty when I married you, Lady Vargrave.  I don't like boy and girl
+marriages: a man should be older than his wife.  But you are so
+romantic, Lady Vargrave.  Besides, Lumley is so gay and good-looking,
+and wears so well.  He has been very nearly forming another attachment;
+but that, I trust, is out of his head now.  They must like each other.
+You will not gainsay me, Lady Vargrave, and if anything happens to
+me--life is uncertain--"
+
+"Oh, do not speak so--my friend, my benefactor!"
+
+"Why, indeed," resumed his lordship, mildly, "thank Heaven, I am very
+well--feel younger than ever I did--but still life is uncertain; and if
+you survive me, you will not throw obstacles in the way of my grand
+scheme?"
+
+"I--no,--no--of course you have the right in all things over her
+destiny; but so young--so soft-hearted, if she should love one of her
+own years--"
+
+"Love!--pooh! love does not come into girls' heads unless it is put
+there.  We will bring her up to love Lumley.  I have another reason--a
+cogent one--our secret!--to him it can be confided--it should not go out
+of our family.  Even in my grave I could not rest if a slur were cast on
+my respectability--my name."
+
+Lord Vargrave spoke solemnly and warmly; then muttering to himself,
+"Yes, it is for the best," he took up his hat and quitted the room.  He
+joined his stepchild on the lawn.  He romped with her--he played with
+her--that stiff, stately man!--he laughed louder than she did, and ran
+almost as fast.  And when she was fatigued and breathless, he made her
+sit down beside him, in a little summer-house, and, fondly stroking down
+her disordered tresses, said, "You tire me out, child; I am growing too
+old to play with you.  Lumley must supply my place.  You love Lumley?"
+
+"Oh, dearly, he is so good-humoured, so kind: he has given me such a
+beautiful doll, with such eyes!"
+
+"You shall be his little wife--you would like to be his little wife?"
+
+"Wife! why, poor mamma is a wife, and she is not so happy as I am."
+
+"Your mamma has bad health, my dear," said Lord Vargrave, a little
+discomposed.  "But it is a fine thing to be a wife and have a carriage
+of your own, and a fine house, and jewels, and plenty of money, and be
+your own mistress; and Lumley will love you dearly."
+
+"Oh, yes, I should like all that."
+
+"And you will have a protector, child, when I am no more."
+
+The tone, rather than the words, of her stepfather struck a damp into
+that childish heart.  Evelyn lifted her eyes, gazed at him earnestly,
+and then, throwing her arms round him, burst into tears.
+
+Lord Vargrave wiped his own eyes, and covered her with kisses.
+
+"Yes, you shall be Lumley's wife, his honoured wife, heiress to my rank
+as to my fortunes."
+
+"I will do all that papa wishes."
+
+"You will be Lady Vargrave, then, and Lumley will be your husband," said
+the stepfather, impressively.  "Think over what I have said.  Now let us
+join mamma.  But, as I live, here is Lumley himself.  However, it is not
+yet the time to sound him:--I hope that he has no chance with that Lady
+Florence."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+                    "Fair encounter
+   Of two most rare affections."--/Tempest/.
+
+MEANWHILE the betrothed were on their road to London.  The balmy and
+serene beauty of the day had induced them to perform the short journey
+on horseback.  It is somewhere said, that lovers are never so handsome
+as in each other's company, and neither Florence nor Ernest ever looked
+so well as on horseback.  There was something in the stateliness and
+grace of both, something even in the aquiline outline of their features
+and the haughty bend of the neck, that made a sort of likeness between
+these young persons, although there was no comparison as to their
+relative degrees of personal advantage: the beauty of Florence defied
+all comparison.  And as they rode from Cleveland's porch, where the
+other guests yet lingering were assembled to give the farewell greeting,
+there was a general conviction of the happiness destined to the
+affianced ones,--a general impression that both in mind and person they
+were eminently suited to each other.  Their position was that which is
+ever interesting, even in more ordinary people, and at that moment they
+were absolutely popular with all who gazed on them; and when the good
+old Cleveland turned away with tears in his eyes and murmured "Bless
+them!" there was not one of the party who would have hesitated to join
+the prayer.
+
+Florence felt a nameless dejection as she quitted a spot so consecrated
+by grateful recollections.
+
+"When shall we be again so happy?" said she, softly, as she turned back
+to gaze upon the landscape, which, gay with flowers and shrubs, and the
+bright English verdure, smiled behind them like a garden.
+
+"We will try and make my old hall, and its gloomy shades, remind us of
+these fairer scenes, my Florence."
+
+"Ah! describe to me the character of your place.  We shall live there
+principally, shall we not?  I am sure I shall like it much better than
+Marsden Court, which is the name of that huge pile of arches and columns
+in Vanbrugh's heaviest taste, which will soon be yours."
+
+"I fear we shall never dispose of all your mighty retinue, grooms of the
+chamber, and Patagonian footmen, and Heaven knows who besides, in the
+holes and corners of Burleigh," said Ernest smiling.  And then he went
+on to describe the old place with something of a well-born country
+gentleman's not displeasing pride; and Florence listened, and they
+planned, and altered, and added, and improved, and laid out a map for
+the future.  From that topic they turned to another, equally interesting
+to Florence.  The work in which Maltravers had been engaged was
+completed, was in the hands of the printer, and Florence amused herself
+with conjectures as to the criticisms it would provoke.  She was certain
+that all that had most pleased her would be /caviare/ to the multitude.
+She never would believe that any one could understand Maltravers but
+herself.  Thus time flew on till they passed that part of the road in
+which had occurred Ernest's adventure with Mrs. Templeton's daughter.
+Maltravers paused abruptly in the midst of his glowing periods, as the
+spot awakened its associations and reminiscences, and looked round
+anxiously and inquiringly.  But the fair apparition was not again
+visible; and whatever impression the place produced, it gradually died
+away as they entered the suburbs of the great metropolis.  Two other
+gentlemen and a young lady of thirty-three (I had almost forgotten them)
+were of the party, but they had the tact to linger a little behind
+during the greater part of the road, and the young lady, who was a wit
+and a flirt, found gossip and sentiment for both the cavaliers.
+
+"Will you come to us this evening?" asked Florence, timidly.
+
+"I fear I shall not be able.  I have several matters to arrange before I
+leave town for Burleigh, which I must do next week.  Three months,
+dearest Florence, will scarcely suffice to make Burleigh put on its best
+looks to greet its new mistress; and I have already appointed the great
+modern magicians of draperies and ormolu to consult how we may make
+Aladdin's palace fit for the reception of the new princess.  Lawyers,
+too!--in short, I expect to be fully occupied.  But to-morrow, at three,
+I shall be with you, and we can ride out, if the day be fine."
+
+"Surely," said Florence, "yonder is Signor Cesarini--how haggard and
+altered he appears!"
+
+Maltravers, turning his eyes towards the spot to which Florence pointed,
+saw Cesarini emerging from a lane, with a porter behind him carrying
+some books and a trunk.  The Italian, who was talking and gesticulating
+as to himself, did not perceive them.
+
+"Poor Castruccio! he seems leaving his lodging," thought Maltravers.
+"By this time I fear he will have spent the last sum I conveyed to
+him--I must remember to find him out and replenish his stores.--Do not
+forget," said he aloud, "to see Cesarini, and urge him to accept the
+appointment we spoke of."
+
+"I will not forget it--I will see him to-morrow before we meet.  Yet it
+is a painful task, Ernest."
+
+"I allow it.  Alas! Florence, you owe him some reparation.  He
+undoubtedly once conceived himself entitled to form hopes the vanity of
+which his ignorance of our English world and his foreign birth prevented
+him from suspecting."
+
+"Believe me, I did not give him the right to form such expectations."
+
+"But you did not sufficiently discourage them.  Ah, Florence, never
+underrate the pangs of hope crushed, of love contemned."
+
+"Dreadful!" said Florence, almost shuddering.  "It is strange, but my
+conscience never so smote me before.  It is since I loved that I feel,
+for the first time, how guilty a creature is--"
+
+"A coquette!" interrupted Maltravers.  "Well, let us think of the past
+no more; but if we can restore a gifted man, whose youth promised much,
+to an honourable independence and a healthful mind, let us do so.  Me,
+Cesarini never can forgive; he will think I have robbed him of you.  But
+we men--the woman we have once loved, even after she rejects us, ever
+has some power over us, and your eloquence, which has so often roused
+me, cannot fail to impress a nature yet more excitable."
+
+Maltravers, on quitting Florence at her own door, went home, summoned
+his favourite servant, gave him Cesarini's address at Chelsea, bade him
+find out where he was, if he had left his lodgings; and leave at his
+present home, or (failing its discovery) at the "Travellers," a cover,
+which he made his servant address, inclosing a bank-note of some amount.
+If the reader wonder why Maltravers thus constituted himself the unknown
+benefactor of the Italian, I must tell him that he does not understand
+Maltravers.  Cesarini was not the only man of letters whose faults he
+pitied, whose wants he relieved.  Though his name seldom shone in the
+pompous list of public subscriptions--though he disdained to affect the
+Maecenas and the patron, he felt the brotherhood of mankind, and a kind
+of gratitude for those who aspired to rise or to delight their species.
+An author himself, he could appreciate the vast debt which the world
+owes to authors, and pays but by calumny in life and barren laurels
+after death.  He whose profession is the Beautiful succeeds only through
+the Sympathies.  Charity and compassion are virtues taught with
+difficulty to ordinary men; to true genius they are but the instincts
+which direct it to the destiny it is born to fulfil-viz., the discovery
+and redemption of new tracts in our common nature.  Genius--the Sublime
+Missionary--goes forth from the serene Intellect of the Author to live
+in the wants, the griefs, the infirmities of others, in order that it
+may learn their language; and as its highest achievement is Pathos, so
+its most absolute requisite is Pity!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+  "/Don John./  How canst thou cross this marriage?
+
+  "/Borachio./  Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly, that no
+   dishonesty shall appear in me, my lord."--/Much Ado about Nothing/.
+
+FERRERS and Cesarini were both sitting over their wine, and both had
+sunk into silence, for they had only one subject in common, when a note
+was brought to Lumley from Lady Florence.--"This is lucky enough!" said
+he, as he read it.  "Lady Florence wishes to see you, and incloses me a
+note for you, which she asks me to address and forward to you.  There it
+is."
+
+Cesarini took the note with trembling hands: it was very short, and
+merely expressed a desire to see him the next day at two o'clock.
+
+"What can it be?" he exclaimed; "can she want to apologise, to explain?"
+
+"No, no, no!  Florence will not do that; but, from certain words she
+dropped in talking with me, I guess that she has some offer to your
+worldly advantage to propose to you.  Ha! by the way, a thought strikes
+me."
+
+Lumley eagerly rang the bell.  "Is Lady Florence's servant waiting for
+an answer?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Very well--detain him."
+
+"Now, Cesarini, assurance is made doubly sure.  Come into the next room.
+There, sit down at my desk, and write, as I shall dictate, to
+Maltravers."
+
+"I!"
+
+"Yes, now do put yourself in my hands--write, write.  When you have
+finished, I will explain."
+
+Cesarini obeyed, and the letter was as follows:
+
+
+"DEAR MALTRAVERS,
+
+"I have learned your approaching marriage with Lady Florence Lascelles.
+Permit me to congratulate you.  For myself, I have overcome a vain and
+foolish passion; and can contemplate your happiness without a sigh.
+
+"I have reviewed all my old prejudices against marriage, and believe it
+to be a state which nothing but the most perfect congeniality of temper,
+pursuits, and minds, can render bearable.  How rare is such
+congeniality!  In your case it may exist.  The affections of that
+beautiful being are doubtless ardent--and they are yours!
+
+"Write me a line by the bearer to assure me of your belief in my
+sincerity.
+
+     "Yours,
+
+          "C. CESARINI."
+
+
+"Copy out this letter, I want its ditto--quick.  Now seal and direct the
+duplicate," continued Ferrers; "that's right; go into the hall, give it
+yourself to Lady Florence's servant, and beg him to take it to Seamore
+Place, wait for an answer, and bring it here; by which time you will
+have a note ready for Lady Florence.  Say I will mention this to her
+ladyship, and give the man half-a-crown.  There, begone."
+
+"I do not understand a word of this," said Cesarini, when he returned:
+"will you explain?"
+
+"Certainly; the copy of the note you have despatched to Maltravers I
+shall show to Lady Florence this evening, as a proof of your sobered and
+generous feelings; observe, it is so written, that the old letter of
+your rival may seem an exact reply to it.  To-morrow a reference to this
+note of yours will bring out our scheme more easily; and if you follow
+my instructions, you will not seem to /volunteer/ showing our handiwork,
+as we at first intended; but rather to yield it to her eyes, from a
+generous impulse, from an irresistible desire to save her from an
+unworthy husband and a wretched fate.  Fortune has been dealing our
+cards for us, and has turned up the ace.  Three to one now on the odd
+trick.  Maltravers, too, is at home.  I called at his house, on
+returning from my uncle's, and learned that he would not stir out all
+the evening."
+
+In due time came the answer from Ernest: it was short and hurried; but
+full of all the manly kindness of his nature; it expressed admiration
+and delight at the tone of Cesarini's letter; it revoked all former
+expressions derogatory to Lady Florence; it owned the harshness and
+error of his first impressions; it used every delicate argument that
+could soothe and reconcile Cesarini; and concluded by sentiments of
+friendship and desire of service, so cordial, so honest, so free from
+the affectation of patronage, that even Cesarini himself, half insane as
+he was with passion, was almost softened.  Lumley saw the change in his
+countenance--snatched the letter from his hand--read it--threw it into
+the fire--and saying, "We must guard against accidents," clapped the
+Italian affectionately on the shoulder, and added, "Now you can have no
+remorse; for a more Jesuitical piece of insulting hypocritical cant I
+never read. Where's your note to Lady Florence?  Your compliments, you
+will be with her at two.  There, now the rehearsal's over, the scenes
+arranged, and I'll dress, and open the play for you with a prologue."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+              "Aestuat ingens
+   Imo in corde pudor, mixtoque insania luctu,
+   Et furiis agitatus amor, et conscia virtus."*--VIRGIL.
+
+* Deep in her inmost heart is stirred the immense shame, and madness
+with commingled grief, and love agitated by rage, and conscious virtue.
+
+THE next day, punctual to his appointment, Cesarini repaired to his
+critical interview with Lady Florence.  Her countenance, which, like
+that of most persons whose temper is not under their command, ever too
+faithfully expressed what was within, was unusually flushed.  Lumley had
+dropped words and hints which had driven sleep from her pillow and
+repose from her mind.
+
+She rose from her seat with nervous agitation as Cesarini entered and
+made his grave salutation.  After a short and embarrassed pause, she
+recovered, however, her self-possession, and with all a woman's delicate
+and dexterous tact, urged upon the Italian the expediency of accepting
+the offer of honourable independence now extended to him.
+
+"You have abilities," she said, in conclusion, "you have friends, you
+have youth; take advantage of those gifts of nature and fortune, and
+fulfil such a career as," added Lady Florence, with a smile, "Dante did
+not consider incompatible with poetry."
+
+"I cannot object to any career," said Cesarini, with an effort, "that
+may serve to remove me from a country that has no longer any charms for
+me.  I thank you for your kindness; I will obey you.  May you be happy;
+and yet--no, ah! no--happy you must be!  Even he, sooner or later, must
+see you with my eyes."
+
+"I know," replied Florence, falteringly, "that you have wisely and
+generously mastered a past illusion.  Mr. Ferrers allowed me to see the
+letter you wrote to Er---to Mr. Maltravers; it was worthy of you: it
+touched me deeply; but I trust you will outlive your prejudices
+against--"
+
+"Stay," interrupted Cesarini; "did Ferrers communicate to you the answer
+to that letter?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"I am glad of it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, no matter.  Heaven bless you; farewell."
+
+"No; I implore you, do not go yet; what was there in that letter that it
+could pain me to see?  Lumley hinted darkly; but would not speak out: be
+more frank."
+
+"I cannot: it would be treachery to Maltravers, cruelty to you; yet
+would it be cruel?"
+
+"No, it would not; it would be kindness and mercy; show me the
+letter--you have it with you."
+
+"You could not bear it; you would hate me for the pain it would give
+you.  Let me depart."
+
+"Man, you wrong Maltravers.  I see it now.  You would darkly slander him
+whom you cannot openly defame.  Go; I was wrong to listen to you--go!"
+
+"Lady Florence, beware how you taunt me into undeceiving you.  Here is
+the letter, it is his handwriting; will you read it?  I warn you not."
+
+"I will believe nothing but the evidence of my own eyes; give it me."
+
+"Stay then; on two conditions.  First, that you promise me sacredly that
+you will not disclose to Maltravers, without my consent, that you have
+seen this letter.  Think not I fear his anger.  No! but in the mortal
+encounter that must ensue, if you thus betray me, your character would
+be lowered in the world's eyes, and even I (my excuse unknown) might not
+appear to have acted with honour in obeying your desire, and warning
+you, while there is yet time, of bartering love for avarice.  Promise
+me."
+
+"I do, I do most solemnly."
+
+"Secondly, assure me that you will not ask to keep the letter, but will
+immediately restore it to me."
+
+"I promise it.  Now then."
+
+"Take the letter."
+
+Florence seized and rapidly read the fatal and garbled document: her
+brain was dizzy, her eyes clouded, her ears rang as with the sound of
+water, she was sick and giddy with emotion; but she read enough.  This
+letter was written, then, in answer to Castruccio's of last night; it
+avowed dislike of her character; it denied the sincerity of her love; it
+more than hinted the mercenary nature of his own feelings.  Yes, even
+there, where she had garnered up her heart, she was not Florence, the
+lovely and beloved woman; but Florence, the wealthy and high-born
+heiress.  The world which she had built upon the faith and heart of
+Maltravers crumbled away at her feet.  The letter dropped from her
+hands; her whole form seemed to shrink and shrivel up; her teeth were
+set, and her cheek was as white as marble.
+
+"O God!" cried Cesarini, stung with remorse.  "Speak to me, speak to
+me, Florence!  I did wrong; forget that hateful letter!  I have been
+false--false!"
+
+"Ah, false--say so again--no, no, I remember he told me--he, so wise, so
+deep a judge of human character, that he would be sponsor for your
+faith--, that your honour and heart were incorruptible.  It is true; I
+thank you--you have saved me from a terrible fate."
+
+"O, Lady Florence, dear--too dear--yet, would that--alas! she does not
+listen to me," muttered Castruccio, as Florence, pressing her hands to
+her temples, walked wildly to and fro the room.  At length she paused
+opposite to Cesarini, looked him full in the face, returned him the
+letter without a word, and pointed to the door.
+
+"No, no, do not bid me leave you yet," said Cesarini, trembling with
+repentant emotion, yet half beside himself with jealous rage at her love
+for his rival.
+
+"My friend, go," said Florence, in a tone of voice singularly subdued
+and soft.  "Do not fear me; I have more pride in me than even affection;
+but there are certain struggles in a woman's breast which she could
+never betray to any one--any one but a mother.  God help me, I have
+none!  Go; when next we meet, I shall be calm."
+
+She held out her hand as she spoke, the Italian dropped on his knee,
+kissed it convulsively, and, fearful of trusting himself further,
+vanished from the room.
+
+He had not been long gone before Maltravers was seen riding through the
+street.  As he threw himself from his horse, he looked up at the window,
+and kissed his hand at Lady Florence, who stood there watching his
+arrival, with feelings indeed far different from those he anticipated.
+He entered the room lightly and gaily.
+
+Florence stirred not to welcome him.  He approached and took her hand;
+she withdrew it with a shudder.
+
+"Are you not well, Florence?"
+
+"I am well, for I have recovered."
+
+"What do you mean? why do you turn from me?"
+
+Lady Florence fixed her eyes on him, eyes that literally blazed; her lip
+quivered with scorn.
+
+"Mr. Maltravers, at length I know you.  I understand the feelings with
+which you have sought a union between us.  O God! why, why was I thus
+cursed with riches--why made a thing of barter and merchandise, and
+avarice, and low ambition?  Take my wealth, take it, Mr. Maltravers,
+since that is what you prize.  Heaven knows I can cast it willingly
+away; but leave the wretch whom you long deceived, and who now, wretch
+though she be, renounces and despises you!"
+
+"Lady Florence, do I hear aright?  Who has accused me to you?"
+
+"None, sir, none; I would have believed none.  Let it suffice that I am
+convinced that our union can be happy to neither: question me no
+further; all intercourse between us is for ever over!"
+
+"Pause," said Maltravers, with cold and grave solemnity; "another word,
+and the gulf will become impassable.  Pause."
+
+"Do not," exclaimed the unhappy lady, stung by what she considered the
+assurance of a hardened hypocrisy--" do not affect this haughty
+superiority; it dupes me no longer.  I was your slave while I loved you:
+the tie is broken.  I am free, and I hate and scorn you!  Mercenary and
+sordid as you are, your baseness of spirit revives the differences of
+our rank.  Henceforth, Mr. Maltravers, I am Lady Florence Lascelles, and
+by that title alone will you know me.  Begone, Sir!"
+
+As she spoke, with passion distorting every feature of her face, all her
+beauty vanished away from the eyes of the proud Maltravers, as if by
+witchcraft: the angel seemed transformed into the fury; and cold,
+bitter, and withering was the eye which he fixed upon that altered
+countenance.
+
+"Mark me, Lady Florence Lascelles," said he, very calmly, "you have now
+said what you can never recall.  Neither in man nor in woman did Ernest
+Maltravers ever forget or forgive a sentence which accused him of
+dishonour.  I bid you farewell for ever; and with my last words I
+condemn you to the darkest of all dooms--the remorse that comes too
+late!"  Slowly he moved away; and as the door closed upon that towering
+and haughty form, Florence already felt that his curse was working to
+its fulfilment.  She rushed to the window--she caught one last glimpse
+of him as his horse bore him rapidly away.  Ah! when shall they meet
+again?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  "And now I live--O wherefore do I live?
+   And with that pang I prayed to be no more."
+                    WORDSWORTH.
+
+IT was about nine o'clock that evening, and Maltravers was alone in his
+room.  His carriage was at the door--his servants were arranging the
+luggage--he was going that night to Burleigh.  London--society-the
+world--were grown hateful to him.  His galled and indignant spirit
+demanded solitude.  At this time, Lumley Ferrers entered.
+
+"You will pardon my intrusion," said the latter, with his usual
+frankness--"but--"
+
+"But what, sir?  I am engaged."
+
+"I shall be very brief.  Maltravers, you are my old friend.  I retain
+regard and affection for you, though our different habits have of late
+estranged us.  I come to you from my cousin--from Florence--there has
+been some misunderstanding between you.  I called on her to-day after
+you left the house.  Her grief affected me.  I have only just quitted
+her.  She has been told by some gossip or other some story or
+other--women are credulous, foolish creatures;--undeceive her, and, I
+dare say, all may be settled."
+
+"Ferrers, if a man had spoken to me as Lady Florence did, his blood or
+mine must have flowed.  And do you think that words that might have
+plunged me into the guilt of homicide if uttered by a man, I could ever
+pardon in one whom I had dreamed of for a wife?  Never!"
+
+"Pooh, pooh--women's words are wind.  Don't throw away so splendid a
+match for such a trifle."
+
+"Do you too, sir, mean to impute mercenary motives to me?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!  You know I am no coward, but I really don't want to
+fight you.  Come, be reasonable."
+
+"I dare say you mean well, but the breach is final--all recurrence to it
+is painful and superfluous.  I must wish you good evening."
+
+"You have positively decided?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Even if Lady Florence made the /amende honorable/?"
+
+"Nothing on the part of Lady Florence could alter my resolution.  The
+woman whom an honourable man--an English gentleman--makes the partner of
+his life, ought never to listen to a syllable against his fair name: his
+honour is hers, and if her lips, that should breathe comfort in calumny,
+only serve to retail the lie--she may be beautiful, gifted, wealthy, and
+high-born, but he takes a curse to his arms.  That curse I have
+escaped."
+
+"And this I am to say to my cousin?"
+
+"As you will.  And now stay, Lumley Ferrers, and hear me.  I neither
+accuse nor suspect you, I desire not to pierce your heart, and in this
+case I cannot fathom your motives; but if it should so have happened
+that you have, in any way, ministered to Lady Florence Lascelles'
+injurious opinions of my faith and honour, you will have much to answer
+for, and sooner or later there will come a day of reckoning between you
+and me."
+
+"Mr. Maltravers, there can be no quarrel between us, with my cousin's
+fair name at stake, or else we should not now part without preparations
+for a more hostile meeting.  I can bear your language.  /I/, too, though
+no philosopher, can forgive.  Come, man, you are heated--it is very
+natural;--let us part friends--your hand."
+
+"If you can take my hand, Lumley, you are innocent, and I have wronged
+you."
+
+Lumley smiled, and cordially pressed the hand of his old friend.
+
+As he descended the stairs, Maltravers followed, and just as Lumley
+turned into Curzon Street, the carriage whirled rapidly past him, and by
+the lamps he saw the pale and stern face of Maltravers.
+
+It was a slow, drizzling rain,--one of those unwholesome nights frequent
+in London towards the end of autumn.  Ferrers, however, insensible to
+the weather, walked slowly and thoughtfully towards his cousin's house.
+He was playing for a mighty stake, and hitherto the cast was in his
+favour, yet he was uneasy and perturbed.  His conscience was tolerably
+proof to all compunction, as much from the levity as from the strength
+of his nature; and (Maltravers removed) he trusted in his knowledge of
+the human heart, and the smooth speciousness of his manner, to win, at
+last, in the hand of Lady Florence, the object of his ambition.  It was
+not on her affection, it was on her pique, her resentment, that he
+relied.  "When a woman fancies herself slighted by the man she loves,
+the first person who proposes must be a clumsy wooer indeed, if he does
+not carry her away."  So reasoned Ferrers, but yet he was ruffled and
+disquieted; the truth must be spoken,--able, bold, sanguine, and
+scornful as he was, his spirit quailed before that of Maltravers; he
+feared the lion of that nature when fairly aroused: his own character
+had in it something of a woman's--an unprincipled, gifted, aspiring, and
+subtle woman's,--and in Maltravers--stern, simple, and masculine--he
+recognised the superior dignity of the "lords of the creation;" he was
+overawed by the anticipation of a wrath and revenge which he felt he
+merited, and which he feared might be deadly.
+
+While gradually, however, his spirit recovered its usual elasticity, he
+came in the vicinity of Lord Saxingham's house, and suddenly, by a
+corner of the street, his arm was seized: to his inexpressible
+astonishment he recognised in the muffled figure that accosted him the
+form of Florence Lascelles.
+
+"Good heavens!" he cried, "is it possible?--You, alone in the streets,
+at this hour, in such a night, too!  How very wrong--how very
+imprudent!"
+
+"Do not talk to me--I am almost mad as it is: I could not rest--I could
+not brave quiet, solitude,--still less, the face of my father--I could
+not!--but quick, what says he?--What excuse has he?  Tell me
+everything--I will cling to a straw."
+
+"And is this the proud Florence Lascelles?"
+
+"No,--it is the humbled Florence Lascelles.  I have done with
+pride--speak to me!"
+
+"Ah, what a treasure is such a heart!  How can he throw it away?"
+
+"Does he deny?"
+
+"He denies nothing--he expresses himself rejoiced to have escaped--such
+was his expression--a marriage in which his heart never was engaged.  He
+is unworthy of you--forget him."
+
+Florence shivered, and as Ferrers drew her arm in his own, her ungloved
+hand touched his, and the touch was like that of ice.
+
+"What will the servants think?--what excuse can we make?" said Ferrers,
+when they stood beneath the porch.  Florence did not reply; but as the
+door opened, she said softly,--
+
+"I am ill--ill," and clung to Ferrers with that unnerved and heavy
+weight which betokens faintness.
+
+The light glared on her--the faces of the lacqueys betokened their
+undisguised astonishment.  With a violent effort, Florence recovered
+herself, for she had not yet done with pride, swept through the hall
+with her usual stately step, slowly ascended the broad staircase, and
+gained the solitude of her own room, to fall senseless on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V8 ***
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