for all!"




CHAPTER VII.


The Results.--Perverted Ambition.--Selfish Passion.--The Intellect
Distorted by the Crookedness of the Heart.

Vivian's schemes thus prospered. He had an income that permitted him
the outward appearances of a gentleman,--an independence modest, indeed,
but independence still. We were all gone from London. One letter to me
with the postmark of the town near which Colonel Vivian lived, sufficed
to confirm my belief in his parentage and in his return to his friends.
He then presented himself to Trevanion as the young man whose pen I had
employed in the member's service; and knowing that I had never mentioned
his name to Trevanion,--for without Vivian's permission I should not,
considering his apparent trust in me, have deemed myself authorized to
do so,--he took that of Gower, which he selected, haphazard, from an old
Court Guide as having the advantage--in common with most names borne by
the higher nobility of England--of not being confined, as the ancient
names of untitled gentlemen usually are, to the members of a single
family. And when, with his wonted adaptability and suppleness, he had
contrived to lay aside or smooth over whatever in his manners would be
calculated to displease Trevanion, and had succeeded in exciting the
interest which that generous statesman always conceived for ability, he
owned candidly one day, in the presence of Lady Ellinor,--for, his
experience had taught him the comparative ease with which the sympathy