ear something quite
different, had tried to see in Eldon's visit a possible salvation for
himself. For the struggle which occupied him more and more had by this
time declared its issues plainly enough; daily the temptation became
stronger, the resources of honour more feeble. In the beginning he had
only played with dangerous thoughts; to break faith with Emma Vine had
appeared an impossibility, and a marriage such as his fancy substituted,
the most improbable of things. But in men of Richard's stamp that
which allures the fancy will, if circumstances give but a little
encouragement, soon take hold upon the planning brain. His acquaintance
with the Walthams had ripened to intimacy, and custom nourished his
self-confidence; moreover, he could not misunderstand the all but direct
encouragement which on one or two recent occasions he had received from
Mrs. Waltham. That lady had begun to talk to him, when they were alone
together, in almost a motherly way, confiding to him this or that
peculiarity in the characters of her children, deploring her inability
to give Adela the pleasures suitable to her age, then again pointing out
the advantage it was to a girl to have all her thoughts centred in home.

'I can truly say,' remarked Mrs. Waltham in the course of the latest
such conversation, 'that Adela has never given me an hour's serious
uneasiness. The dear child has, I believe, no will apart from her desire
to please me. Her instincts are so beautifully submissive.'

To a man situated like Mutimer this tone is fatal. In truth it seemed
to make offer to him of what he supremely desired. No such encouragement
had come from Adela herself, but that meant nothing either way; Richard
had already perceived that maidenly reserve was a far more complex
matter in a girl of gentle breeding, than in those with whom he had
formerly associated; for all he knew, increase of distance in manner
might represent the very hope that he was seeking. That hope he sought,
in all save the hours when conscience lorded over silence, with a
reality of desire such as he had never known. Perhaps it was not Adela,
and Adela alone, that inspired this passion; it was a new ideal of the
feminine addressing itself to his instincts. Adela had the field to
herself, and did indeed embody in almost an ideal degree the fine
essence of distinctly feminine qualities which appeal most strongly
to the masculine mind. Mutimer was not capable of love in the highest
sen