ista in my
correspondence)--' Calista, I swear to thee, by the spotlessness of thy
own soul, by the brilliancy of thy immitigable eyes, by everything pure
and chaste in heaven and in thy own heart, that I will never cease
from following thee! Scorn I can bear, and have borne at thy hands.
Indifference I can surmount; 'tis a rock which my energy will climb
over, a magnet which attracts the dauntless iron of my soul!' And it was
true, I wouldn't have left her--no, though they had kicked me downstairs
every day I presented myself at her door.

That is my way of fascinating women. Let the man who has to make his
fortune in life remember this maxim. ATTACKING is his only secret. Dare,
and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again,
and it will succumb. In those days my spirit was so great, that if I
had set my heart upon marrying a princess of the blood, I would have had
her!

I told Calista my story, and altered very very little of the truth.
My object was to frighten her: to show her that what I wanted, that I
dared; that what I dared, that I won; and there were striking passages
enough in my history to convince her of my iron will and indomitable
courage. 'Never hope to escape me, madam,' I would say: 'offer to
marry another man, and he dies upon this sword, which never yet met its
master. Fly from me, and I will follow you, though it were to the gates
of Hades.' I promise you this was very different language to that she
had been in the habit of hearing from her Jemmy-Jessamy adorers. You
should have seen how I scared the fellows from her.

When I said in this energetic way that I would follow Lady Lyndon across
the Styx if necessary, of course I meant that I would do so, provided
nothing more suitable presented itself in the interim. If Lyndon would
not die, where was the use of my pursuing the Countess? And somehow,
towards the end of the Spa season, very much to my mortification I do
confess, the knight made another rally: it seemed as if nothing would
kill him. 'I am sorry for you, Captain Barry,' he would say, laughing as
usual. 'I'm grieved to keep you, or any gentleman, waiting. Had you not
better arrange with my doctor, or get the cook to flavour my omelette
with arsenic? What are the odds, gentlemen,' he would add, 'that I don't
live to see Captain Barry hanged yet?'

In fact, the doctors tinkered him up for a year. 'It's my usual luck,'
I could not help saying to my uncle, who was my c