BOOK X.

"A dream!"--HOMER, I, 3.



CHAPTER I.

QUALIS ubi in lucem coluber
. . . Mala gramina pastus.*--VIRGIL.

Pars minima est ipsa puella sui.**--OVID.

* "As when a snake glides into light, having fed on pernicious
pastures."

** "The girl is the least part of himself."

IT would be superfluous, and, perhaps, a sickening task, to detail at
length the mode and manner in which Vargrave coiled his snares round the
unfortunate girl whom his destiny had marked out for his prey. He was
right in foreseeing that, after the first amazement caused by the letter
of Maltravers, Evelyn would feel resentment crushed beneath her certainty
of his affection her incredulity at his self-accusations, and her secret
conviction that some reverse, some misfortune he was unwilling she should
share, was the occasion of his farewell and flight. Vargrave therefore
very soon communicated to Evelyn the tale he had suggested to Maltravers.
He reminded her of the habitual sorrow, the evidence of which was so
visible in Lady Vargrave; of her indifference to the pleasures of the
world; of her sensitive shrinking from all recurrence to her early fate.