gratefully at his feet, and this in spite of the knowledge forewarning
her of the miserable life he would certainly lead her, at all events
until her slowly developing beauty should give her the whip hand of
him--by which time she would have come to despise him. Fortunately,
as she told herself, there was no fear of his doing so, the future
notwithstanding. Nellie Fanshawe's beauty held him as with chains of
steel, and Nellie had no intention of allowing her rich prize to
escape her. Her own lover, it was true, irritated her more than any
man she had ever met, but at least he would afford her refuge from the
bread of charity. Jessica Dearwood, an orphan, had been brought up by
a distant relative. She had not been the child to win affection. Of
silent, brooding nature, every thoughtless incivility had been to her
an insult, a wrong. Acceptance of young Camelford seemed her only
escape from a life that had become to her a martyrdom. At forty-one
he would wish he had remained a bachelor; but at thirty-eight that
would not trouble her. She would know herself he was much better off
as he was. Meanwhile, she would have come to like him, to respect
him. He would be famous, she would be proud of him. Crying into her
pillow--she could not help it--for love of handsome Dick, it was still
a comfort to reflect that Nellie Fanshawe, as it were, was watching
over her, protecting her from herself.

Dick, as he muttered to himself a dozen times a day, ought to marry
Jessica. At thirty-eight she would be his ideal. He looked at her as
she was at eighteen, and shuddered. Nellie at thirty would be plain
and uninteresting. But when did consideration of the future ever cry
halt to passion: when did a lover ever pause thinking of the morrow?
If her beauty was to quickly pass, was not that one reason the more
urging him to possess it while it lasted?