ay
trust me, I do not love Lady Alice sufficiently to betray you."

And now her voice had a tone of bitterness surpassing Mardyn's; he looked
steadily at her; she met and returned his gaze, and that interchange of
looks seemed to satisfy both, Mardyn at once began:

"Neither of us have much cause to like Sir John's new bride; she may strip
you of a splendid inheritance, and I have still more reason to detest her.
Shortly after my arrival in London, I met Lady Alice Mortimer. I had heard
much of her beauty--it seemed to me to surpass all I had heard. I loved
her; she seemed all playful simplicity and innocence; but I discovered she
had come to the age of calculation, and that though many followed, and
praised her wit and beauty, I was almost the only one who was serious in
wishing to marry Lord Mortimer's poor and somewhat _passee_ daughter. She
loved me, I believe, as well as she could love any one. That was not the
love I gave, or asked in return. In brief, I saw through her sheer
heartlessness, the first moment I saw her waver between the wealth of an
old sensualist, and my love. I left her, but with an oath of vengeance; in
the pursuit of that revenge it will be your interest to assist. Will you
aid me?"

"How can I?" she asked.

"It is not difficult," he replied. "Lady Alice and I have met to-night;
she prefers me still. Let her gallant bridegroom only know this, and we
have not much to fear."

Clara Daventry paused, and, with clenched hands, and knit brow, ruminated
on his words--familiar with the labyrinthine paths of the plotter, she was
not long silent.

"I think I see what you mean," she said. "And I suppose you have provided
means to accomplish your scheme?"

"They are provided for us. Where could we find materials more made to our
hands?--a few insinuations, a conversation overheard, a note conveyed
opportunely--these are trifles, but trifles are the levers of human
action."

There was no more said then; each saw partly through the insincerity and
falsehood of the other, yet each knew they agreed in a common object.
These were strange scenes to await a bride, on the first eve in her new
home.

Two or three months have passed since these conversations. Sir John
Daventry's manner has changed to his bride: he is no longer the lover, but
the severe, exacting husband. It may be that he is annoyed at all his
long-confirmed bachelor habits being broken in upon, and that, in time, he
will become used to t