is bosom. As to Alexandrina, he knew the thinness of
her character. She would stick by him, no doubt; and in a circuitous,
discontented, unhappy way, would probably be true to her duties as
a wife and mother. She would be nearly such another as Lady Amelia
Gazebee. But was that a prize sufficiently rich to make him contented
with his own prowess and skill in winning it? And was that a prize
sufficiently rich to justify him to himself for his terrible
villainy? Lily Dale he had loved; and he now declared to himself that
he could have continued to love her through his whole life. But what
was there for any man to love in Alexandrina de Courcy?

While resolving, during his first four or five days at the castle,
that he would throw Lily Dale overboard, he had contrived to quiet
his conscience by inward allusions to sundry heroes of romance. He
had thought of Lothario, Don Juan, and of Lovelace; and had told
himself that the world had ever been full of such heroes. And the
world, too, had treated such heroes well; not punishing them at all
as villains, but caressing them rather, and calling them curled
darlings. Why should not he be a curled darling as well as another?
Ladies had ever been fond of the Don Juan character, and Don Juan had
generally been popular with men also. And then he named to himself a
dozen modern Lotharios,--men who were holding their heads well above
water, although it was known that they had played this lady false,
and brought that other one to death's door, or perhaps even to death
itself. War and love were alike, and the world was prepared to
forgive any guile to militants in either camp.

But now that he had done the deed he found himself forced to look
at it from quite another point of view. Suddenly that character of
Lothario showed itself to him in a different light, and one in which
it did not please him to look at it as belonging to himself. He began
to feel that it would be almost impossible for him to write that
letter to Lily, which it was absolutely necessary that he should
write. He was in a position in which his mind would almost turn
itself to thoughts of self-destruction as the only means of escape. A
fortnight ago he was a happy man, having everything before him that a
man ought to want; and now--now that he was the accepted son-in-law
of an earl, and the confident expectant of high promotion--he was the
most miserable, degraded wretch in the world!

He changed his clothes at his l