alone,
as he quietly scrambled over or scrambled through upon foot, and
remounted the well-taught animal when it halted after the exploit,
safe and sound;--Mr. Marsden declared that he never saw a rider with
so little judgment as Monsieur de Vaudemont, and that the devil was
certainly in him.

This sort of reputation, commonplace and merely physical as it was in
itself, had a certain effect upon Camilla; it might be an effect
of fear. I do not say, for I do not know, what her feelings towards
Vaudemont exactly were. As the calmest natures are often those the
most hurried away by their contraries, so, perhaps, he awed and dazzled
rather than pleased her;--at least, he certainly forced himself on her
interest. Still she would have started in terror if any one had said to
her, "Do you love your betrothed less than when you met by that happy
lake?"--and her heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner. The
letters of her lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and
more subdued. But then there was constraint in the correspondence--it
was submitted to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont's manner to
Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did
not make his attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched
her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible
from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even
to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance
of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived
Lord Lilburne's short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to
keep watch on that noble gamester's method of play, he played but
little himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining
him--there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like him. But this
was not all; when Vaudemont had been at the house somewhat more than two
weeks, Lilburne, petulant and impatient, whether at his refusals to
join the card-table, or at the moderation with which, when he did, he
confined his ill-luck to petty losses, one day limped up to him, as he
stood at the embrasure of the window, gazing on the wide lands beyond,
and said:--

"Vaudemont, you are bolder in hunting, they tell me, than you are at
whist."

"Honours don't tell against one--over a hedge!"

"What do you mean?" said Lilburne, rather haughtily.

Vaudemont was, at that moment, in one of those bitter moods when the
sen