union that gave her rank and fortune;
and Vargrave then rested satisfied that the clever wife would not only
secure him a permanent power over the political influence and private
fortune of the weak husband, but also abet his designs in securing an
alliance equally desirable for himself. Here it was that Vargrave's
incapacity to understand the refinements and scruples of a woman's
affection and nature, however guilty the one, and however worldly the
other, foiled and deceived him. Caroline, though the wife of another,
could not contemplate without anguish a similar bondage for her lover;
and having something of the better qualities of her sex still left to
her, she recoiled from being an accomplice in arts that were to drive
the young, inexperienced, and guileless creature who called her "friend"
into the arms of a man who openly avowed the most mercenary motives, and
who took gods and men to witness that his heart was sacred to another.
Only in Vargrave's presence were these scruples overmastered; but the
moment he was gone they returned in full force. She had yielded, from
positive fear, to his commands that she should convey Evelyn to Paris;
but she trembled to think of the vague hints and dark menaces that
Vargrave had let fall as to ulterior proceedings, and was distracted at
the thought of being implicated in some villanous or rash design.
When, therefore, the man whose rivalry Vargrave most feared was almost
established at her house, she made but a feeble resistance; she thought
that, if Legard should become a welcome and accepted suitor before
Lumley arrived, the latter would be forced to forego whatever hopes
he yet cherished, and that she should be delivered from a dilemma, the
prospect of which daunted and appalled her. Added to this, Caroline
was now, alas! sensible that a fool is not so easily governed; her
resistance to an intimacy with Legard would have been of little avail:
Doltimore, in these matters, had an obstinate will of his own; and,
whatever might once have been Caroline's influence over her liege,
certain it is that such influence had been greatly impaired of late by
the indulgence of a temper, always irritable, and now daily more soured
by regret, remorse, contempt for her husband,--and the melancholy
discovery that fortune, youth, beauty, and station are no talismans
against misery.

It was the gayest season of Paris; and to escape from herself, Caroline
plunged eagerly into the vortex of its