s the poor lord divinely felt the case was
different. There is something impressive in a great human hulk writhing
under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot contend with, or
account for, or explain by means of intelligible words. At first he took
refuge in the depths of his contempt for women. Cupid gave him line. When
he had come to vent his worst of them, the fair face now stamped on his
brain beamed the more triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose to the
surface, and after a few convulsions, surrendered his huge length. My
lord was in love with Richard's young wife. He gave proofs of it by
burying himself beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he gave
further proofs of a real devotion, in affecting, and in her presence
feeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being. This wonder,
that when near her he should be cool and composed, and when away from her
wrapped in a tempest of desires, was matter for what powers of cogitation
the heavy nobleman possessed.

The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press the
business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than his
parasite. Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced little wife
apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had commended her to
the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady Judith had left the
Island for London: Lord Mountfalcon remained. There could be no harm. If
she had ever thought so, she no longer did. Secretly, perhaps, she was
flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as well educated as it is the fortune of
the run of titled elder sons to be: he could talk and instruct: he was a
lord: and he let her understand that he was wicked, very wicked, and that
she improved him. The heroine, in common with the hero, has her ambition
to be of use in the world--to do some good: and the task of reclaiming a
bad man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear to their tender bosoms
as old china is a bad man they are mending! Lord Mountfalcon had none of
the arts of a libertine: his gold, his title, and his person had hitherto
preserved him from having long to sigh in vain, or sigh at all, possibly:
the Hon. Peter did his villanies for him. No alarm was given to Lucy's
pure instinct, as might have been the case had my lord been over-adept.
It was nice in her martyrdom to have a true friend to support her, and
really to be able to do something for that friend. Too simple-minded to
think muc