her blood: half of the worst of the old world, half of the rudest and
wildest of the new. She had been a captivating wonder to the young
Englishman, accustomed to all the domestic bonds and decorums, when he
saw her first, a fresh wild-flower, as he thought, with the purity as
well as the savagery of primitive nature. But afterwards it seemed an
uncertain matter whether she had ever known what purity was, or whether
those links which bound him to her had not bound other men even before
his day. She had flung in his face those marriage lines which women of
the lower classes generally hold in such reverence, and had laughed and
assured him that they were so much waste paper, and that as she did not
mean to be bound by them, neither need he; and then she had disappeared,
and for years he had not known that she existed. The awful discovery
that she was in the neighbourhood of his friends, and that he himself
might by chance meet her any moment on the common road, had turned him
to stone. Lizzie Hampson had been her maid during the brief period in
which she was his wife, and had loved and clung to her, the subject of a
fascination not uncommon between women, after every other trace of that
episode in her life had passed away. Dick Cavendish had not for years
thought of that miserable episode in his until he had by chance recognised
Lizzie at Underwood. He had even lent himself with no serious purpose,
yet with a light heart, to that scheme of his family and friends about
the nice girl who was to convert him into a steady member of society. No
doubt the moment it had become serious he must have felt himself brought
face to face with the burdens and hindrances of his previous career,
even had he not seen Lizzie Hampson. This reminder of what had been,
however, came at the exact crisis when Chatty Warrender had (as his
errant imagination always pictured her) pushed open lightly the door of
his heart and walked in with the bowl of roses in her hands: and hence
all the tumults and storms which had suddenly seized again upon a life
almost forgetful of any cause for these tempests. He knew what he ought
to have done then. He ought to have flown from Chatty and every other
"nice girl," as indeed he had done at once, to do him justice. But who
could have foreseen that meeting in London, who provided against the
necessity of "paying a little attention" to the mother and sister of his
friend? And now here was this invitation, which meant