one, dear friend.'

Here was a woman easily deceived.

In the hearts of certain men, owing to an intellectual contempt of easy
dupes, compunction in deceiving is diminished by the lightness of their
task; and that soft confidence which will often, if but passingly, bid
betrayers reconsider the charms of the fair soul they are abandoning,
commends these armoured knights to pursue with redoubled earnest the
fruitful ways of treachery. Their feelings are warm for their prey,
moreover; and choosing to judge their victim by the present warmth of
their feelings, they can at will be hurt, even to being scandalized, by a
coldness that does not waken one suspicion of them. Jealousy would have a
chance of arresting, for it is not impossible to tease them back to
avowed allegiance; but sheer indifference also has a stronger hold on
them than a, dull, blind trustfulness. They hate the burden it imposes;
the blind aspect is only touching enough to remind them of the burden,
and they hate if for that, and for the enormous presumption of the belief
that they are everlastingly bound to such an imbecile. She walks about
with her eyes shut, expecting not to stumble, and when she does, am I to
blame? The injured man asks it in the course of his reasoning.

He recurs to his victim's merits, but only compassionately, and the
compassion is chilled by the thought that she may in the end start across
his path to thwart him. Thereat he is drawn to think of the prize she may
rob him of; and when one woman is an obstacle, the other shines desirable
as life beyond death; he must have her; he sees her in the hue of his
desire for her, and the obstacle in that of his repulsion. Cruelty is no
more than the man's effort to win the wished object.

She should not leave it to his imagination to conceive that in the end
the blind may awaken to thwart him. Better for her to cast him hence, or
let him know that she will do battle to keep him. But the pride of a love
that has hardened in the faithfulness of love cannot always be wise on
trial.

Caseldy walked considerably in the rear of the couple of chairs. He saw
on his way what was coming. His two young squires were posted at Duchess
Susan's door when she arrived, and he received a blow from one of them in
clearing a way for her. She plucked at his hand. 'Have they hurt you?'
she asked.

'Think of me to-night thanking them and heaven for this, my darling,' he
replied, with a pressure that lit the fl