den winter landscape pretends to be the country
radiant in colour. She belonged to the order of the variable animals--a
woman indeed!--womanish enough in that. There are men who love
women--the idea of woman. Woman is their shepherdess of sheep. He loved
freedom, loathed the subjection of a partnership; could undergo it only
in adoration of an ineffable splendour. He had stepped to the altar
fancying she might keep to her part of the contract by appearing the
miracle that subdued him. Seen by light of day, this bitter object
beside him was a witch without her spells; that is, the skeleton of the
seductive, ghastliest among horrors and ironies. Let her have the credit
of doing her work thoroughly before the exposure. She had done it.
She might have helped--such was the stipulation of his mad freak in
consenting to the bondage--yes, she might have helped to soften the
sting of his wound. She was beside him bearing his name, for the
perpetual pouring of an acid on the wound that vile Henrietta--poisoned
honey of a girl!--had dealt.

He glanced down at his possession:--heaven and the yawning pit were the
contrast! Poisoned honey is after all honey while you eat it. Here there
was nothing but a rocky bowl of emptiness. And who was she? She was the
sister of Henrietta's husband. He was expected to embrace the sister of
Henrietta's husband. Those two were on their bridal tour.

This creature was also the daughter of an ancient impostor and desperado
called the Old Buccaneer; a distinguished member of the family of the
Lincolnshire Kirbys, boasting a present representative grimly acquitted,
men said, on a trial for murder. An eminent alliance! Society considered
the Earl of Fleetwood wildish, though he could manage his affairs. He
and his lawyers had them under strict control. How of himself? The prize
of the English marriage market had taken to his bosom for his winsome
bride the daughter of the Old Buccaneer. He was to mix his blood with
the blood of the Lincolnshire Kirbys, lying pallid under the hesitating
acquittal of a divided jury.

How had he come to this pass, which swung him round to think almost
regretfully of the scorned multitude of fair besiegers in the market,
some of whom had their unpoetic charms?

He was renowned and unrivalled as the man of stainless honour: the one
living man of his word. He had never broken it--never would. There
was his distinction among the herd. In that, a man is princely above
princ