o this man, and meet THE OTHER, I shall
hate him and leave him! I am not good, Harry: my mother is gentle and
good like an angel. I wonder how she should have had such a child. She
is weak, but she would die rather than do a wrong; I am stronger than
she, but I would do it out of defiance. I do not care for what the
parsons tell me with their droning sermons: I used to see them at court
as mean and as worthless as the meanest woman there. Oh, I am sick and
weary of the world! I wait but for one thing, and when 'tis done, I will
take Frank's religion and your poor mother's, and go into a nunnery, and
end like her. Shall I wear the diamonds then?--they say the nuns wear
their best trinkets the day they take the veil. I will put them away as
you bid me; farewell, cousin: mamma is pacing the next room racking her
little head to know what we have been saying. She is jealous, all women
are. I sometimes think that is the only womanly quality I have."

"Farewell. Farewell, brother." She gave him her cheek as a brotherly
privilege. The cheek was as cold as marble.

Esmond's mistress showed no signs of jealousy when he returned to
the room where she was. She had schooled herself so as to look quite
inscrutably, when she had a mind. Amongst her other feminine qualities
she had that of being a perfect dissembler.

He rode away from Castlewood to attempt the task he was bound on, and
stand or fall by it; in truth his state of mind was such, that he was
eager for some outward excitement to counteract that gnawing malady
which he was inwardly enduring.

CHAPTER VIII.

I TRAVEL TO FRANCE AND BRING HOME A PORTRAIT OF RIGAUD.

Mr. Esmond did not think fit to take leave at Court, or to inform all
the world of Pall Mall and the coffee-houses, that he was about to quit
England; and chose to depart in the most private manner possible. He
procured a pass as for a Frenchman, through Dr. Atterbury, who did that
business for him, getting the signature even from Lord Bolingbroke's
office, without any personal application to the Secretary. Lockwood, his
faithful servant, he took with him to Castlewood, and left behind there:
giving out ere he left London that he himself was sick, and gone to
Hampshire for country air, and so departed as silently as might be upon
his business.

As Frank Castlewood's aid was indispensable for Mr. Esmond's scheme, his
first visit was to Bruxelles (passing by way of Antwerp, where the Duke
of Marlborou