hout proof? She is dear to me _now_. You are the only living
being so thoughtless or so merciless as to force her name upon me, and
rake up the one folly, the one madness, the one crowning sorrow of my
life. See that you never dare bring forward her name again."

He went out before me into the soft night air. His carriage was
waiting; he entered it, threw himself back on its cushions, and was
driven off before I had time to break my word of honor to Beatrice
Boville, which I felt sorely tempted to do just then. Who among the
thousands that heard his briliant speech that night, or read it the next
morning, who saw him pass in his carriage, and had him pointed out to
them as the finest orator of his day, or dined with him at his
ministerial dinners at his house in Park Lane, would have believed that,
with all his ambition, fame, honors, and attainments, the one cross, the
one shadow, the one dark thread, in the successful stateman's life, was
due to a woman's hand, and that underneath all his strength lay that
single weakness, sapping and undermining it?

"_Did you_ see that girl Boville at the House last night?" Lady Clive
(who had smiled most sweetly ever since her thorns had brought forth
their fruit--her son _would_ be his heir--Earlscourt would never marry
now!) said to me, the next day, at one of the Musical Society concerts.
"Incredible effrontery, wasn't it, in her, to come and hear Earlscourt's
speech? One would have imagined that conscience and delicacy might have
made her reluctant to see him, instead of letting her voluntarily seek
his own legislative chamber, and listen coolly for an hour and a half to
the man whom she misled and deceived so disgracefully."

I laughed to think how long a time a woman's malice _will_ flourish,
n'importe how victorious it may have been in crushing its object, or how
harmless that object may have become.

"You are very bitter about her still, Lady Clive. Is that quite fair?
You know you were so much obliged to her for throwing Earlscourt away.
You want Horace to come in for the title, don't you?" Which truism
being unpalatable, Lady Clive averred that she had no wish on earth but
for Earlscourt's happiness; that of course she naturally grieved for his
betrayal by that little intrigante, but that had his marriage been a
well-advised one, nobody would have rejoiced more, etc., etc., and bade
me be silent and listen to Vieuxtemps, both of which commands I obeyed,
pondering in my