affections of Raymond, was more necessary to her being,
than the life-blood that animated her veins--more truly than Othello she
might say,

To be once in doubt,
Is--once to be resolved.

On the present occasion she did not suspect any alienation of affection; but
she conjectured that some circumstance connected with his high place, had
occasioned this mystery. She was startled and pained. She began to count
the long days, and months, and years which must elapse, before he would be
restored to a private station, and unreservedly to her. She was not content
that, even for a time, he should practice concealment with her. She often
repined; but her trust in the singleness of his affection was undisturbed;
and, when they were together, unchecked by fear, she opened her heart to
the fullest delight.

Time went on. Raymond, stopping mid-way in his wild career, paused suddenly
to think of consequences. Two results presented themselves in the view he
took of the future. That his intercourse with Evadne should continue a
secret to, or that finally it should be discovered by Perdita. The
destitute condition, and highly wrought feelings of his friend prevented
him from adverting to the possibility of exiling himself from her. In the
first event he had bidden an eternal farewell to open-hearted converse, and
entire sympathy with the companion of his life. The veil must be thicker
than that invented by Turkish jealousy; the wall higher than the
unscaleable tower of Vathek, which should conceal from her the workings of
his heart, and hide from her view the secret of his actions. This idea was
intolerably painful to him. Frankness and social feelings were the essence
of Raymond's nature; without them his qualities became common-place;
without these to spread glory over his intercourse with Perdita, his
vaunted exchange of a throne for her love, was as weak and empty as the
rainbow hues which vanish when the sun is down. But there was no remedy.
Genius, devotion, and courage; the adornments of his mind, and the energies
of his soul, all exerted to their uttermost stretch, could not roll back
one hair's breadth the wheel of time's chariot; that which had been was
written with the adamantine pen of reality, on the everlasting volume of
the past; nor could agony and tears suffice to wash out one iota from the
act fulfilled.

But this was the best side of the question. What, if circumstance should
lead Perdita to suspect, and suspe