more strained; there are few young men who would have kept unbroken
allegiance to a mother whose sympathy failed them at such a crisis.

As the year went on his passion seemed to grow in the absence of the
beloved object. His only plan of winning her was to win his spurs first;
but as what? Clearly his forte, it seemed, was in writing. If he could
be a successful writer of romances, of songs, of plays, surely she would
not refuse him. And so he began another romantic story, "Velasquez, the
Novice," opening with the Monks of St. Bernard, among whom had been, so
the tale ran, a mysterious member, whose papers, when discovered, made
him out the hero of adventures in Venice. He began a play, which was to
be another great work, "Marcolini." He had no playwright's eye for
situations, but the conversation is animated, and the characters finely
drawn, with more discrimination than one would expect from so young an
author.

This work was interrupted at the end of Act III. by pressing calls to
other studies. But it was not that he had forgotten Adele. From time to
time he wrote verses to her or about her; and as in 1838 she was sent to
school with her sisters at Newhall, near Chelmsford, to "finish" her in
English, in that August he saw her again. She had lost some of her first
girlish prettiness, but that made no difference. And when the Domecqs
came to Herne Hill at Christmas, he was as deeply in love as ever. But
she still laughed at him.

His father was fond of her, liked all the sisters, and thought much of
them as girls of fine character, but he liked Adele best. He seems to
have been fond of his partner, too, worked very hard in his interests,
and behaved very well to his heirs afterwards through many years of
responsible and difficult management of their business. And at this
time, when he went down to the convent school in Essex, as he often did,
he must have had opportunities for seeing how hopeless the case was. Mr.
Domecq recognised it, too, but thought, it seems (they manage these
things differently in France), that any of his daughters would do as
well, and early in 1839 entertained an offer from Baron Duquesne, a rich
and handsome young Frenchman. They kept this from John, fearing he would
break down at the news, so fully did they recognise the importance of
the affair. They even threw other girls in his way. It was not
difficult, for by now he had made some mark in magazine literature, and
was a steady, rising y