canvassed, seemed inclined to quote the old
school-master's words on witnessing his pupil's success, "Bless the boy!
I taught him."

Some other subject soon came up and replaced the week's wonder.

Constance left town with her uncle almost immediately, and I heard
nothing of her for many months. Miss Bellasys remained. Very few persons
even guessed at the share she had had in breaking off the match; so her
credit was not much impaired, and her campaign was as brilliantly
successful as usual. If she felt any disappointment at Guy's abrupt
departure, she concealed it remarkably well. In some things, though
naturally impetuous and impatient, she was as cool as a Red Indian, and
would wait and watch forever if she saw a prospect of ultimate success.
So the days rolled on, bringing swiftly and surely the bitter
harvest-time, when he who had sown the wind was to reap the whirlwind.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"And from his lips those words of insult fell--
His sword is good who can maintain them well."

It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was
beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned
from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his
wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living
that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able
to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and
to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame.

But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only
an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily
existence. Mohun would never say--perhaps he did not know--how much Guy
had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic _coups_
(he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was
fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy
mortgage--the maiden one in his time--on the fair lands of Kerton Manor.

I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "_Heureux en jeu;
malheureux en amour_." It seems one of the least true of all stale,
stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and
sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes.
The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes
"Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon
broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him.

He had be