e her passionate jealousy were really aroused. It was even doubtful
if the certainty of her own ruin would check her. Her love was
everything to her, it was her life, the thing she lived for, and
rather than tamely lose it, it seemed extremely probable to Edward
Cossey that she would not hesitate to face shame, or even death.
Indeed it was through this great passion of hers, and through it only,
that he could hope to influence her. If he could persuade her to
release him, by pointing out that a continuance of the intrigue must
involve him in ruin of some sort, all might yet go well with him. If
not his future was a dark one.

This was the state of affairs before he became attached to Ida de la
Molle, after which the horizon grew blacker than ever. At first he
tried to get out of the difficulty by avoiding Ida, but it did not
answer. She exercised an irresistible attraction over him. Her calm
and stately presence was to him what the sight of mountain snows is to
one scorched by continual heat. He was weary of passionate outbursts,
tears, agonies, alarms, presentiments, and all the paraphernalia of
secret love. It appeared to him, looking up at the beautiful snow,
that if once he could reach it life would be all sweetness and light,
that there would be no more thirst, no more fear, and no more forced
marches through those ill-odoured quagmires of deceit. The more he
allowed his imagination to dwell upon the picture, the fiercer grew
his longing to possess it. Also, he knew well enough that to marry a
woman like Ida de la Molle would be the greatest blessing that could
happen to him, for she would of necessity lift him up above himself.
She had little money it was true, but that was a very minor matter to
him, and she had birth and breeding and beauty, and a presence which
commands homage. And so it came to pass that he fell deeply and yet
more deeply in love with Ida, and that as he did so his connection
with Mrs. Quest (although we have seen him but yesterday offering in a
passing fit of tenderness and remorse to run away with her) became
more and more irksome to him. And now, as he drove leisurely back to
Boisingham, he felt that he had imperilled all his hopes by a rash
indulgence in his trading instincts.

Presently the road took a turn and a sight was revealed that did not
tend to improve his already irritable mood. Just here the roadway was
bordered by a deep bank covered with trees which sloped down to the
valley