connected--the most powerful patrician of the party of which Darrell was
so conspicuous a chief. Could he escape Lady Montfort's presence, her
name at least would be continually in his ears. From that fatal beauty
he could no more hide than from the sun.

This thought, and the terror it occasioned him, completed his resolve on
the instant. The next day he was in the groves of Fawley, and amazed the
world by dating from that retreat a farewell address to his constituents.
A few days after, the news of his daughter's death reached him; and as
that event became known it accounted to many for his retirement for a
while from public life.

But to Caroline Montfort, and to her alone, the secret of a career
blasted, a fame renounced, was unmistakably revealed. For a time she was
tortured, in every society she entered, by speculation and gossip which
brought before her the memory of his genius, the accusing sound of his
name. But him who withdraws from the world, the world soon forgets; and
by degrees Darrell became as little spoken of as the dead.

Mrs. Lyndsay had never, during her schemes on Lord Montfort, abandoned
her own original design on Darrell. And when, to her infinite amaze and
mortification, Lord Montfort, before the first month of his marriage
expired, took care, in the fewest possible words, to dispel her dream of
governing the House, and residing in the houses of Vipont, as the lawful
agent during the life-long minority to which she had condemned both the
submissive Caroline and the lethargic Marquess, she hastened by letter to
exculpate herself to Darrell--laid, of course, all the blame on Caroline.
Alas! had not she always warned him that Caroline was not worthy of him?
--him, the greatest, the best of men, &c., &c. Darrell replied by a
single cut of his trenchant sarcasm--sarcasm which shore through her