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thing,' pleaded Valentine, when they were alone together again, and he bent slightly towards her'that you will never think of the foolish words I have uttered, but look upon me as a friend in the future, and consider the past forgotten and buried, as it most assuredly is.'

'You have forgiven me, then ?' she said, yielding to an impulse, her voice low and tremulous with feeling. O Heavens! the power of her beauty! It penetrated him like some divine odour affecting his brain.

He looked at her, his heart beating loudly.

Everything. Perhaps, after all, it was for the best-most things are.'

'Yes,' she said dreamily, and I am happy.'

This unveiling of a perfect soul tortured him. If love had only flashed forth but for an instant's space!

'So much the better,' he said hurriedly; and I think you will admit I took my dismissal pretty well; and I suppose it's a case with you of out of sight out of mind. Now, let's turn the subject, and never allude to it any more.'

As the footman brought in the tea Hilliard took possession of a low armchair, and added cream and sugar to the dark-coloured liquid that is in such universal request; and they chatted quite unrestrainedly over ordinary subjects; and the coachman outside walked his horses up and down the wide road for about the thousandth time. Valentine quite meant to stay to dinner; he wished to be an intime here, and he wanted to study that cousin Lionel, whom he so sincerely hated.

"The poor beggar must be tired, I should think, by this time, of taking the bays up and down the

road,' he said, moving aside the écru-tinted curtains.

'The horses! I had forgotten they were ordered !'

And I have spoilt your drive,' he said penitently. Are you very angry? Send me away, Mrs. Carrington, and go and dress.'

The softness had returned to his eyes and voice, and he looked at her as he had never before looked at a woman-a gaze of silent inexpressible worship.

'I shall not drive to-day; we dine earlier, as we are going to the Opera. You will stay and see Lionel ?'

'Thanks; I should be delighted. I met him on 'Change, you know, yesterday-fancy me on 'Change! I'm getting an excellent man of business-and he gave me carte blanche to visit here, and made me promise to call soon.'

'And you might share our box to-night; there's sure to be room.' Again thanks. What opera is

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it ?'

'Romeo e Julietta. Patti plays Juliet.'

'And Nicolini Romeo, I suppose? Suits their case. There's a little too much luscious sweetness, though, in the music, and, according to our modern notions and tastes, the couple are so absurdly spoony.'

You are forgetting your tea,' said Gwendoline, with a smile; then, as Josephine reappeared in answer to her ring, 'Tell Radley I shall not want the carriage at all this afternoon.'

The voice was as sweet and gentle as ever. How adorable she was ! The same light seemed to radiate from her as of old. He had seen her humiliated and tormented at home; had overheard her nervous reproaches when Dolly's slight contemptuous laugh had stung too keenly; and now was this calm life really suited to

her? He saw her surrounded by every luxury. She confessed she was happy, but he doubted it. There is a love more cruel than hate, and Valentine had not improved of late; the sudden influx of wealth embittered him since he had lost Gwendoline. She would have been less proof against his fascinations had she been a mere society doll; he might then have appealed more easily to her vanity and senses.

At that moment the door opened somewhat hastily, and Lionel stood before them. He rather expected to find Hilliard here, having met Eric, who informed him of his cousin's visit.

'I'm very glad indeed you've called to-day,' he said, shaking his cousin's hand heartily, for I promised my wife I'd take her to the Opera to-night, and I find I must return to my office, and perhaps work all night.'

'Indeed! Any business worry?' asked Hilliard, stroking his moustache.

'Lionel works too hard,' said Gwendoline, as he turned and kissed her. 'I fear he will be quite ill.'

It will soon be over now, I hope, and I shall be able to take some rest. You'll stay to dinner, Val; we seem almost strangers to each other, but intimacy will soon change all that.'

Was he blind or mad? thought Valentine, as Lionel, tired and pale, threw himself into a chair, frowning slightly at some intrusive thought. Gwendoline left them together to dress for dinner. Her morbid fears that she could never meet Hilliard unmoved were gone; he had revived her faith in herself, and it was evident Lionel liked him, and was anxious for his society.

Look here, old fellow,' said Valentine, after a pause, rising and

standing before his host, 'that old man's will was a piece of infernal injustice; I know it. I should like to square everything. Bank with us if you want ease of mind and unlimited discount.'

'I cannot say I am quite satisfied with my present bankers.'

'You won't have reason to complain of us. Half a million was a tidy sum to receive, was it not, as floating capital ?'

'He left you half a million, then?'

'Yes, and a quantity of shares and house property. I don't know what to do with it, but we'll discount your paper to any amount.' Why should Lionel mistrust

him?

And for the moment, at least, he was sincere; he had no base or sinister intentions on his cousin's business; no desire to ruin him financially.

If it be true that our opinions of others are entirely regulated by the passions that govern or influence ourselves, and we only believe in those motives of action of which we ourselves are capable, then it is readily understood that Lionel was incapable of attributing any false or cruel meaning to his cousin's offers.

'We can talk all this over another day; but I am sure you mean well towards me,' said Lionel warmly. 'What a strange affair this duel is in Paris!' opening his paper; 'I knew the Count intimately.'

'And he has killed the lover,' muttered Hilliard, his eyes sombre and gloomy again.

'He had better have killed himself,' said Lionel. And now about the Opera. I don't like to disappoint my wife; she's so fond of music. Will you take her and my sister to-night to Her Majesty's?'

'Delighted to be of any service,' he said, bowing, as Miss Carrington, followed by her pugs, sailed

into the room, and then advanced and shook hands with him.

'What a miraculous escape you had' she said, with enthusiasm. 'We must hear all about it by and by. Here's Gwendoline, and I believe dinner will soon be ready.'

'If I have to go to the Opera I must return to my hotel and dress,' said Valentine, glancing at his watch. He wished he had ordered his brougham and detained it; but a cab was soon in readiness, and bidding the man drive quickly, in less than an hour he was again seated in Mr. Carrington's drawing-room, in full evening-dress, looking over a book of fine engravings in which Miss Carrington took considerable pride. Gwendoline sat a little apart, a strange misgiving disturbing her peace as she met that bright defiant look which had governed her so completely in the past. Dressed in her soft white laces, a tea-rose at her throat, she looked a mere child still; her face was somewhat flushed, her eyes sparkled and shone, but he could see nothing sad or wearied in her aspect, or that spoke of a blighted life.

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His heart misgave him, as one viewing his lost Eden dreams of the bowers of Paradise, from which he is cast forth for ever.

'Here's uncle Reginald,' she cried, going to the window; 'I am so glad he has come.'

Hilliard made an impatient movement with his foot.

'Valentine, will you take my wife down to dinner?' said Lionel, offering his arm to his sister, and saluting Reginald as they descended the stairs.

'Thought I could take care of the ladies at the Opera,' explained Reginald, as his eyes rested on Hilliard with a vexed expression. Warned by Dolly, he feared for Gwendoline: if all the rest were blind or indifferent, he was not.

'O, thanks, but I have been selected to have that honour,' said Valentine, with a quick glance at Gwendoline; 'you are a little too late.'

'Your knight-errantry will be no doubt appreciated,' muttered Reginald, drawing his chair to the table.

'What the deuce does he mean?' wondered Hilliard, relapsing into silence.

They did not linger long over dinner. Mr. Carrington was clearly not in his usual spirits, and Hilliard's wit and dinner-table talk were scarcely up to the mark. He was an acknowledged brilliant raconteur, a charming conversationalist; but to-night he said little, devoting himself dutifully to Miss Carrington, but noticing Gwendoline's every look and word. She was conscious of this dumb watching; it affected her with a feverish impatience she could not understand. At last they all breathed freer as the pine was handed and the desert came to an end. Lionel's

wines were splendid; Hilliard drank more than he ate, and, after swallowing his coffee, rejoiced at seeing the carriage drive round to convey them to the Opera. Some instinct made Reginald later on invent excuses for leaving, put on his hat, and follow in a hansom. He was very fond of his young niece, he was passionately grateful to the man who had rescued him from beggary and want in America; and Reginald the scholar, who had studied human nature, the feuilletoniste who derided it, suspected Valentine of some deep design.

The orchestra were playing the beautiful overture when the three entered their box. The music breathed of love; its struggles, anguish, and despair; it suggested hymeneal festivals and the fulfilment of every hope and promisemusic which speaks of things which

in all our lives we have not found and never shall find, breathed here in a mighty masterpiece, created by one of the greatest living geniuses of the age, and portrayed every vision of beauty, form, and movement. Miss Carrington felt sleepy, and chattered on indifferent subjects; there was no pain to her in this exquisite poetry, these sublime pictures-a prosaical mind. is spared a good deal. Valentine felt - himself a worthless miserable sin

ner as he listened, for all his idealic creeds; but his absorbing infatuation was fed by these delicious sounds.

It was profanation, it was vilest treachery, to think of an earthly love in connection with Gwendoline; but he was too world-worn and tired of most things not to revel in the ecstasy of the moments passed by the side of that quiet girlish figure, 'gowned in pure white' like a pale spring flower, he yet longed to crush in his relentless hands. . . . Why had he ever come under her adorable influence again? She was a poem, a picture, a dream, and he could only worship her from afar, in a restless trance, as the music stole into his veins and maddened him. His mood reacted on her with the strange electricity of thought and feeling. Romeo was by her side, and she, trembling before a harsh mother, was, like Juliet, struggling against an evil destiny and a cruel world. These scenes savoured of youth in its wild extravagance and rapture, flushed with joy and hope -of life, of the very sap and essence of life; here were terror, parting, despair, intermingled with happiness, trust, tenderness, each overshadowed by the tomb, and poetised by early death, and over all the bright Italian firmament, and the idyllic grace of another century and the South. Then suddenly she awoke to her danger. It

flashed upon her she was a wife, bound by the obligations of a sacred vow, and no longer that girlish Juliet who had lingered in the apple orchard with her lover as the sun went down over the sea.

'We must not listen,' she said half to herself, starting from her reverie, and he saw there were tears in her eyes. Reginald from the gallery, using his powerful lorgnon, saw them too.

'Take me to the Duchess of Grandcourt, please,' whispered Miss Carrington, waking up; 'she is beckoning me to her box. You can order an ice for Gwendoline.' Valentine rose and took her along the corridor on his arm; it was the end of the second act. On his return he looked Gwendoline steadily in the eyes.

'Why must we not listen?' he said quietly; 'is it some devil's drink that will poison us or make us mad? . . . You know what I mean.'

'O God! why do you speak to me like that ?'

6

Remember, this is a tragedy; they both died, and they loved as we did once.'

'Valentine, we must not meet or see each other any more.'

'O, yes, we shall; we belong to the nineteenth century fortunately, a liberal age with expanded views; the bowl and the dagger business has exploded.'

'And honour and belief in God?' she asked, in a low voice.

He laughed in his throat.

Why should you shrink from me? You kept faith with them— you wrecked my life.'

'For pity's sake leave me as I am- -as I was before you returned -at rest and contented.'

'I shall do nothing of the kind,' he said, his white ungloved hand. wandering from the back of his chair till it rested on the velvet ledge of the box. I mean to cure

you of false prejudices and narrow scruples !'

'It is wrong-it is criminal to talk as you do.'

Let it be wrong! If so, it is all that will ever ease my wretchedness.'

'Valentine, you must forget meyou must learn to care for some one else.'

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'I once had a dog,' he said, looking away from her for a moment and frowning, that was shot by accident out on the moors one autumn, and I never had the courage to get another; the loss of that poor brute cut me up terribly. Don't you remember the proverb, "On n'a dans la vie qu'un chien, comme on n'a qu'un amour?".. When we see a gem that is unique of its kind we call it priceless, we sometimes risk life itself to possess it.'

She listened, trembling and heartsick, her features contracted with mental pain; she looked pale and worn. Here was the shadow of her past, the sad wraith that was daily growing less distinct as a memory, but whose remembrance still held a shapeless pain; and she wished to dismiss it gently, not seeing the vague danger threatening her peace.

His

The Duchess is in an abominable temper,' sighed Miss Carrington, sniffing her smelling-salts as she returned to the box. Excellency the Count d'Aleardi has disappointed her, not having come; she thinks the opera absurd, and, after a little argument with me, has actually withdrawn her support from one of my most cherished schemes for the protection of friendless girls. . . You may order us two ices,' nodding to Valentine, 'but be sure mine is a Neapolitan -this heat is suffocating!'

CHAPTER XXV.

TEMPTATION.

'It is the radiance of you, and not you. It is that which you know not in yourself, and can never know.'

AFTER Valentine reëntered his hotel that night his good angel pleaded with him. Why lay snares for the innocent and those who trusted him? He would go away from London, abandon his plan of attack, and leave Gwendoline in peace. This cruel love that vexed his soul should not ruin her future; it was evident she was not unhappy-that sympathy existed be tween her husband and herself. The bitter truth remained that she seemed content with her lot; she had principles and honour to guide her; she was not blinded and dazzled by a sad and unholy passion. Valentine had, in truth, been disappointed with her greet ing. There was no slow sinking of her eyes under the steady glance he turned on her, scarcely any tremor or visible agitation.

'If I leave her now,' was his thought, 'I shall not palter with temptation. I may forget her in a prolonged absence if I look upon her as for ever dead to me; and it will be better for both of us in the end.'

Unfortunately for himself he was not a commonplace type of man. He had both feeling and intelligence. He was devoid of vulgar sharpness, and was capable of sacrifice. What he did should be done openly; and yet he hesitated, from day to day, in pursuing any settled course of action.

How can he overturn her from that lofty pedestal on which his thoughts have placed her? he not dreamt of her every hour they have been parted? To disprove that those exquisite qualities which attracted him no longer exist will not cure his madness.

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