e confided what he wished to
keep concealed from the world (for ambitious men would fain be thought
immortal) told him frankly that it was improbable that, with the wear
and tear of political strife and action, he could advance far into
middle age. Therefore, no son of his succeeding--his nearest relations
all wealthy--Egerton resigned himself to his constitutional disdain
of money; he could look into no affairs, provided the balance in his
banker's hands were such as became the munificent commoner. All else
he left to his steward and to Levy. Levy grew rapidly rich,--very, very
rich,--and the steward thrived.

The usurer continued to possess a determined hold over the imperious
great man. He knew Audley's secret; he could reveal that secret to
Harley. And the one soft and tender side of the statesman's nature--the
sole part of him not dipped in the ninefold Styx of practical prosaic
life, which renders man so invulnerable to affection--was his remorseful
love for the school friend whom he still deceived.

Here then you have the key to the locked chambers of Audley Egerton's
character, the fortified castle of his mind. The envied minister, the
joyless man; the oracle on the economies of an empire, the prodigal in
a usurer's hands; the august, high-crested gentleman, to whom princes
would refer for the casuistry of honour, the culprit trembling lest the
friend he best loved on earth should detect his lie! Wrap thyself in the
decent veil that the Arts or the Graces weave for thee, O Human Nature!
It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold
without shame and offence!

CHAPTER XIX.

Of the narrative just placed before the reader, it is clear that
Leonard could gather only desultory fragments. He could but see that his
ill-fated mother had been united to a man she had loved with surpassing
tenderness; had been led to suspect that the marriage was fraudulent;
had gone abroad in despair; returned repentant and hopeful; had gleaned
some intelligence that her lover was about to be married to another,
and there the manuscript closed with the blisters left on the page by
agonizing tears. The mournful end of Nora, her lonely return to die
under the roof of her parents,--this he had learned before from the
narrative of Dr. Morgan.

But even the name of her supposed husband was not revealed. Of him
Leonard could form no conjecture, except that he was evidently of higher
rank than Nora. Harley L'Estr