e abandoned himself to his
fate without further resistance. He let himself drift with the tide
that was so much stronger than himself; and if there were breakers
ahead, or fatal rocks lurking invisible beneath the blue waters, he
must take his chance. His frail bark must go to pieces when her time
came. In the meanwhile it was so delicious to float upon the summer
sea, that a man could afford to forget future possibilities in the way
of rocks and quicksands.

Miss Paget had known very few pleasures in the course of her
uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish as
that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse with
Valentine and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no
prying eye discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported
in silence. "Who takes any heed of my feelings, or cares whether I am
glad or sorry?" she thought; "_he_ does not."

CHAPTER VI.

THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN.

The sand which ran so swiftly in the glass which that bright young
urchin Love had wrested from the hand of grim old Time ran with an
almost equal swiftness in the hour-glasses of lodging-house keepers and
tradespeople, and the necessities of every day demanded perpetual
exertion on the part of Mr. Hawkehurst, let Charlotte's eyes be never
so bright, and Charlotte's society never so dear. For Captain Paget and
his _protege_ there was no such thing as rest; and the ingenious
Captain took care that the greater part of the labour should be
performed by Valentine, while the lion's share of the spoil was pounced
upon by the ready paw of the noble Horatio. Just now he found his pupil
unusually plastic, unusually careless of his own interests, and ready
to serve his master with agreeable blindness. Since that awkward little
affair at Foretdechene, that tiresome entanglement about a King of
Spades which had put in an appearance at a moment when no such monarch
was to be expected, Captain Paget had obtained the means of existence
in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for
it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any
means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman
address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing
predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the
unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a
salutary effect upon the adventurer's future pl