ure to which she had linked her fate? Not
there could ever be sympathy in feelings, brilliant and shifting as the
tints of the rainbow. When Audley pressed her heart to his own, could he
comprehend one finer throb of its beating? Was all the iron of his mind
worth one grain of the gold she had cast away in Harley's love?

Did Nora already discover this? Surely no. Genius feels no want,
no repining, while the heart is contented. Genius in her paused and
slumbered: it had been as the ministrant of solitude: it was needed no
more. If a woman loves deeply some one below her own grade in the mental
and spiritual orders, how often we see that she unconsciously quits her
own rank, comes meekly down to the level of the beloved, is afraid lest
he should deem her the superior,--she who would not even be the equal.
Nora knew no more that she had genius; she only knew that she had love.

And so here, the journal which Leonard was reading changed its tone,
sinking into that quiet happiness which is but quiet because it is so
deep. This interlude in the life of a man like Audley Egerton could
never have been long; many circumstances conspired to abridge it. His
affairs were in great disorder; they were all under Levy's management.
Demands that had before slumbered, or been mildly urged, grew menacing
and clamorous. Harley, too, returned to London from his futile
researches, and looked out for Audley. Audley was forced to leave his
secret Eden, and reappear in the common world; and thenceforward it was
only by stealth that he came to his bridal home,--a visitor, no more the
inmate. But more loud and fierce grew the demands of his creditors, now
when Egerton had most need of all which respectability and position
and belief of pecuniary independence can do to raise the man who has
encumbered his arms, and crippled his steps towards fortune. He was
threatened with writs, with prison. Levy said "that to borrow more would
be but larger ruin," shrugged his shoulders, and even recommended a
voluntary retreat to the King's Bench. "No place so good for frightening
one's creditors into compounding their claims; but why," added Levy,
with covert sneer, "why not go to young L'Estrange, a boy made to be
borrowed from!"

Levy, who had known from Lady Jane of Harley's pursuit of Nora, had
learned already how to avenge himself on Egerton. Audley could not apply
to the friend he had betrayed. And as to other friends, no man in town
had a greater num