itual" directions.

Hubert Lisle would have turned his back upon such sophistry, and scorned
such a diabolical medium, how fair soever. He had not, however, been at
Vine Cottage a week, every day in the society of one whose situation so
much appealed to his sympathy and kindness, when he became conscious
that he had been taken into a high mountain, and had not strength to
say, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

From this height was offered him a treasure worth more than kingdoms and
thrones and all the riches of the earth. Instead of shuddering and
turning back, he fixed his eye upon the glittering prize.

"It is thine," whispered the tempter, "the hand that holds so fair a
pearl is all unworthy. It chafes and frets within the cruel grasp which
an ungleaming pebble might fill as well. It would glow in the sunlight
of your fostering care. It would enrich your soul as a priceless gem; as
an amaranthine flower it would breathe unto your heart an eternal
perfume."

Hubert Lisle had made obeisance to feminine beauty in every land; but
his heart had remained untouched. Like his father years before, he had
arrived at the mature age of twenty-eight, unscathed by the blind god's
arrow.

Hit at last, and so unwisely pierced! To love the wife of another!
Hubert would have scorned such an insinuation but a few days before. But
he had not then seen Althea. He loved her, was she not his cousin? He
loved her, who could resist, she was so beautiful and good? He loved
her, she was so unhappy, _must_ be unhappy as the wife of Thornton Rush.
She had been won with false words and deceitful ways and wiles. Thornton
deserved to lose what he had dishonestly gained, and what he apparently
valued so little. Had not Thornton Rush wronged and, as it were, robbed
the dead, and bitterly betrayed himself to gain possession of a jewel
which should have been his own, which he would have worn so proudly? Had
not this man been his enemy from childhood; with his mother, the curse
of his father's house? Ever in his way, a perpetual thorn in the flesh,
could he not now dislodge him root and branch, and spit him upon an
arrow, that should cease never to quiver?

Hubert Lisle experienced qualms of conscience, debated as to right and
wrong, gave many thoughts to the censoriousness of the world, but he had
not the fear of God before his eyes.

"I can win her if I will," was his confident thought at the first.

"I will win her at all hazards," was his later