hout an
effort. It had been part of Mabel's scheme that it should be so.
During all this morning she had been thinking of her scheme. It was
all but hopeless. So much she had declared to herself. But forlorn
hopes do sometimes end in splendid triumphs. That which she might
gain was so much! And what could she lose? The sweet bloom of her
maiden shame? That, she told herself, with bitterest inward tears,
was already gone from her. Frank Tregear at any rate knew where her
heart had been given. Frank Tregear knew that having lost her heart
to one man she was anxious to marry another. He knew that she was
willing to accept the coronet of a duchess as her consolation.
That bloom of her maiden shame, of which she quite understood the
sweetness, the charm, the value--was gone when she had brought
herself to such a state that any human being should know that, loving
one man, she should be willing to marry another. The sweet treasure
was gone from her. Its aroma was fled. It behoved her now to be
ambitious, cautious,--and if possible successful.

When first she had so resolved, success seemed to be easily within
her reach. Of all the golden youths that crossed her path no one was
so pleasant to her eye, to her ear, to her feelings generally as this
Duke's young heir. There was a coming manliness about him which she
liked,--and she liked even the slight want of present manliness.
Putting aside Frank Tregear she could go nearer to loving him than
any other man she had ever seen. With him she would not be turned
from her duties by disgust, by dislike, or dismay. She could even
think that the time would come when she might really love him. Then
she had all but succeeded, and she might have succeeded altogether
had she been but a little more prudent. But she had allowed her great
prize to escape from her fingers.

But the prize was not yet utterly beyond her grasp. To recover
it,--to recover even the smallest chance of recovering it, there
would be need of great exertion. She must be bold, sudden,
unwomanlike,--and yet with such display of woman's charm that he at
least should discover no want. She must be false, but false with
such perfect deceit, that he must regard her as a pearl of truth.
If anything could lure him back it must be his conviction of her
passionate love. And she must be strong;--so strong as to overcome
not only his weakness, but all that was strong in him. She knew that
he did love that other girl,--and she mus