merely bowed and opened the letter. As
she read it, the flush which had died away
returned more brightly than before, her
eyes could not be seen under their downcast
lids, but the brows were knit, the nostrils
trembled, and the mouth grew hard and
rigid. She read the letter through, twice,
then she looked up, and her voice shook as
she said, "That is a wicked and base
letter, very heartless and very base!"

"Lady Caroline!" interrupted Joyce,
appealingly.

"What! do you seek to defend it?—no,
not to defend it, for in your own heart you
must know I am right in my condemnation
of it, but to plead for it. You don't like to
hear me speak harshly of it—that's so like
a man! I tell you that it is a heartless
and an unwomanly letter! 'Deepens the
pain with which she writes,' indeed!
Deepens the pain! and what about yours?
'It is her nature to love money, and
comforts and luxuries, and to shrink from
privations!' Her nature! What was she
bred to, this duchess?"

In his misery at hearing Marian thus
spoken of, since the blow had fallen upon
him he had never been so miserable as
then, when she was attacked, and he saw
the impossibility of defending her. Joyce
could not help remarking that he had never
noticed Lady Caroline's beauty so much as
at that moment, when her eyes were flashing
and her ripe lips curling with contempt.
But he was silent, and she proceeded:

"She says you are better without her,
and, though of course you doubt it, I am
mightily disposed to agree with her! I—
Mr. Joyce!" said her ladyship, suddenly
softening her tone, "believe me, I feel
earnestly and deeply for you under this
blow! I fear it is none the less severe
because you don't show how much you suffer.
This—this young lady's decision will, of
course, materially affect the future which
you had plotted out for yourself, and of
which we spoke the last time we were here
together?"

"Oh yes, of course,—now I shall—by
the way, Lady Caroline, I recollect now—
it scarcely impressed me then—that during
that conversation you seemed to have some
doubts as to what Marian—as to what
might be the reply to the letter which I
told you I had written?"

"I certainly had."

"And you endeavoured to wean me from
the miserable self-conceit under which I
was labouring, and failed. I recollect your
hints now! Tell me, Lady Caroline, why
was I so blind? What made you suspect?"

"My dear Mr. Joyce, you were blind
because you were in love! I suspected,
because being merely a looker-on, an
interested one, I acknowledge, for I had a
great interest in your welfare, but still
merely a looker-on, and therefore, according
to the old proverb, seeing most of the game,
I could not help noticing that the peculiar
position of affairs, and the length of time
you remained without any news of your
fiancée, afforded grave grounds of
suspicion."

"Yes!" said poor Walter—"as you say!
I am blind! I never noticed that."

"Now, Mr. Joyce," said Lady Caroline,
"the question is not with the past, but
with the future. What do you intend
doing?"

"I have scarcely thought! It matters
very little!"

"Pardon my saying that it matters very
much! Do you think of taking up this
appointment for the newspaper that you spoke
of?—this correspondentship in Berlin?"

"No! I think not! I really don't know I
I thought of remaining as I am!"

"What! pass the rest of your life in
writing Lord Hetherington's letters, and
cramming him for speeches which he will
never deliver?"

"It is an honest and an easy way of earning
a living, at all events."

"Of earning a living! And are you
going to content yourself with 'earning
your living,' Mr. Joyce?"

"Oh, Lady Caroline, why should I do
anything else? The desire for making
money has gone from me altogether with
the receipt and perusal of that letter! She
was the spur that urged me on; my dreams
of fame and wealth and position were for
her, not for myself, and now––"

"And now you are going to abandon it
all, do you mean to tell me that? That
you, a young man possessing intellect, and
energy, and industry, with a career before
you, are about to abandon that career, and to
condemn yourself to vegetation—sheer and
simple vegetation, mind, not life—merely
because you have been grossly deceived by
a woman, who, your common sense ought
to have told you, has been playing you
false for months, and who, as she herself
confesses, has all her life rated the worthiness
of people as to what they were worth
in money? You are clearly not in your
right mind, Mr. Joyce. I am surprised at
you!"