sibyl preserved an obstinate silence. She was satisfied with the
hints she had already thrown out, and absolutely refused to say more
till better authorized by the inquiries she had set on foot. Artfully
she turned from these topics of closer and more household interest to
those on which she had previously insisted, connected with the general
knowledge of mankind, and the complicated science of practical life.
To fire his genius, wing his energies, inflame his ambition above that
slow, laborious drudgery to which he had linked the chances of his
career, and which her fiery and rapid intellect was wholly unable
to comprehend--save as a waste of life for uncertain and distant
objects--became her task. And she saw with delight that Ardworth
listened to her more assentingly than he had done at first. In truth,
the pain shut within his heart, the conflict waged keenly between his
reason and his passion, unfitted him for the time for mere mechanical
employment, in which his genius could afford him no consolation. Now,
genius is given to man, not only to enlighten others, but to comfort
as well as to elevate himself. Thus, in all the sorrows of actual
existence, the man is doubly inclined to turn to his genius for
distraction. Harassed in this world of action, he knocks at the gate of
that world of idea or fancy which he is privileged to enter; he escapes
from the clay to the spirit. And rarely, till some great grief comes,
does the man in whom the celestial fire is lodged know all the gift of
which he is possessed. At last Ardworth's visits ceased abruptly. He
shut himself up once more in his chambers; but the law books were laid
aside.

Varney, who generally contrived to call when Ardworth was not there,
seldom interrupted the lovers in their little paradise of the garden;
but he took occasion to ripen and cement his intimacy with Percival.
Sometimes he walked or (if St. John had his cabriolet) drove home and
dined with him, tete-a-tete, in Curzon Street; and as he made Helen his
chief subject of conversation, Percival could not but esteem him amongst
the most agreeable of men. With Helen, when Percival was not there,
Varney held some secret conferences,--secret even from Percival. Two or
three times, before the hour in which Percival was accustomed to come,
they had been out together; and Helen's face looked more cheerful than
usual on their return. It was not surprising that Gabriel Varney, so
displeasing to a man like Ar