Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 11

								


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BOOK XI.


"Man is born to be a doer of good."--MARCUS ANTONINUS, lib. iii.

CHAPTER I.



            His teeth he still did grind,
And grimly gnash, threatening revenge in vain.--SPENSER.
IT is now time to return to Lord Vargrave.  His most sanguine hopes were
realized; all things seemed to prosper.  The hand of Evelyn Cameron was
pledged to him, the wedding-day was fixed.  In less than a week she was
to confer upon the ruined peer a splendid dowry, that would smooth all
obstacles in the ascent of his ambition.  From Mr. Douce he learned that
the deeds, which were to transfer to himself the baronial possessions of
the head of the house of Maltravers, were nearly completed; and on his
wedding-day he hoped to be able to announce that the happy pair had set
out for their princely mansion of Lisle Court.  In politics; though
nothing could be finally settled till his return, letters from Lord
Saxingham assured him that all was auspicious: the court and the heads of
the aristocracy daily growing more alienated from the premier, and more
prepared for a Cabinet revolution.  And Vargrave, perhaps, like most
needy men, overrated the advantages he should derive from, and the
servile opinions he should conciliate in, his new character of landed
proprietor and wealthy peer.  He was not insensible to the silent anguish
that Evelyn seemed to endure, nor to the bitter gloom that hung on the
brow of Lady Doltimore. But these were clouds that foretold no
storm,--light shadows that obscured not the serenity of the favouring
sky.  He continued to seem unconscious to either; to take the coming
event as a matter of course, and to Evelyn he evinced so gentle,
unfamiliar, respectful, and delicate an attachment, that he left no
opening, either for confidence or complaint.  Poor Evelyn! her gayety,
her enchanting levity, her sweet and infantine playfulness of manner,
were indeed vanished.  Pale, wan, passive, and smileless, she was the
ghost of her former self!  But days rolled on, and the evil one drew
near; she recoiled, but she never dreamed of resisting.  How many equal
victims of her age and sex does the altar witness!
One day, at early noon, Lord Vargrave took his way to Evelyn's.  He had
been to pay a political visit in the Faubourg St. Germain, and he was now
slowly crossing the more quiet and solitary part of the gardens of the
Tuileries, his hands clasped behind him, after his old, unaltered habit,
and his eyes downcast,--when suddenly a man, who was seated alone beneath
one of the trees, and who had for some moments watched his steps with an
anxious and wild aspect, rose and approached him.  Lord Vargrave was not
conscious of the intrusion, till the man laid his hand on Vargrave's arm,