IN her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect--
Such as moves men.--_Measure for Measure_.

_Abbess_. Haply in private--
_Adriana_. And in assemblies too.--_Comedy of Errors_.

IT was true, as Maltravers had stated, that Legard had of late been
little at Lady Doltimore's, or in the same society as Evelyn. With the
vehemence of an ardent and passionate nature, he yielded to the jealous
rage and grief that devoured him. He saw too clearly, and from the
first, that Maltravers adored Evelyn; and in her familiar kindness of
manner towards him, in the unlimited veneration in which she appeared to
hold his gifts and qualities, he thought that that love might become
reciprocal. He became gloomy and almost morose; he shunned Evelyn, he
forbore to enter into the lists against his rival. Perhaps the
intellectual superiority of Maltravers, the extraordinary conversational
brilliancy that he could display when he pleased, the commanding dignity
of his manners, even the matured authority of his reputation and years,
might have served to awe the hopes, as well as to wound the vanity, of a
man accustomed himself to be the oracle of a circle. These might have
strongly influenced Legard in withdrawing himself from Evelyn's society;
but there was one circumstance, connected with motives much more
generous, that mainly determined his conduct. It happened that
Maltravers, shortly after his first interview with Evelyn, was riding
alone one day in the more sequestered part of the Bois de Boulogne, when
he encountered Legard, also alone, and on horseback. The latter, on
succeeding to his uncle's fortune, had taken care to repay his debt to
Maltravers; he had done so in a short but feeling and grateful letter,