coldness; proudly I submitted to her seasonings; fearlessly I confided
the result to you. Ah! how radiant was your smile, when, in the parting
hour, I said, 'Summer and you will return again!' In vain, on pretence
that the experiment should be complete, did your mother carry you abroad,
and exact from us both the solemn promise that not even a letter should
pass beween us--that our troth, made thus conditional, should be a secret
to all--in vain, if meant to torture me with doubt. In my creed, a doubt
is itself a treason. How lovely grew the stern face of Ambition!--how
Fame seemed as a messenger from me to you! In the sound of applause I
said 'They cannot shut out the air that will carry that sound to her
ears! All that I can win from honour shall be my marriage gifts to my
queenly bride.' See that arrested pile--begun at my son's birth, stopped
awhile at his death, recommenced on a statelier plan when I thought of
your footstep on its floors--your shadow on its walls. Stopped now
forever! Architects can build a palace; can they build a home? But you
--you--you, all the while--your smile on another's suit--your thoughts on
another's hearth!"

"Not so!--not so! Your image never forsook me. I was giddy,
thoughtless, dazzled, entangled; and I told you in the letter you
returned to me--told you that I had been deceived!"

"Patience--patience! Deceived! Do you imagine that I do not see all
that passed as in a magician's glass? Caroline Montfort, you never loved
me; you never knew what love was. Thrown suddenly into the gay world,
intoxicated by the effect of your own beauty, my sombre figure gradually
faded dim--pale ghost indeed in the atmosphere of flowers and lustres,
rank with the breath of flatterers. Then came my lord the Marquess--
a cousin privileged to familiar intimacy to visit at will, to ride with
you, dance with you, sit side by side with you in quiet corners of