nd on the very morning that she did so. She
carried away with her his letters of love as well as her own, which
when they first married she had in an hour of fondness collected
together,--then an inestimable board!--and never did her new lover
receive from her beautiful lips half so passionate a kiss as she left on
the cheek of her infant. For some months she enjoyed with her paramour
all for which she had sighed in her home. The one for whom she had
forsaken her legitimate ties was a person so habitually cheerful,
courteous, and what is ordinarily termed "good-natured" (though he
had in him as much of the essence of selfishness as any nobleman can
decently have), that he continued gallant to her without an effort long
after he had begun to think it possible to tire even of so lovely a
face. Yet there were moments when the fickle wife recalled her husband
with regret, and contrasting him with her seducer, did not find all the
colourings of the contrast flattering to the latter. There is something
in a powerful and marked character which women and all weak natures feel
themselves constrained to respect; and Welford's character thus stood in
bold and therefore advantageous though gloomy relief when opposed to the
levities and foibles of this guilty woman's present adorer. However this
be, the die was cast; and it would have been policy for the lady to have
made the best of her present game. But she who had murmured as a wife
was not complaisant as a mistress. Reproaches made an interlude to
caresses, which the noble lover by no means admired. He was not a man
to retort, he was too indolent; but neither was he one to forbear.
"My charming friend," said he one day, after a scene, "you weary of
me,--nothing more natural! Why torment each other? You say I have ruined
you; my sweet friend, let me make you reparation. Become independent; I
will settle an annuity upon you; fly me,--seek happiness elsewhere, and
leave your unfortunate, your despairing lover to his fate."

"Do you taunt me, my lord?" cried the angry fair; "or do you believe
that money can replace the rights of which you have robbed me? Can you
make me again a wife,--a happy, a respected wife? Do this, my lord, and
you atone to me!"

The nobleman smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. The lady yet more
angrily repeated her question. The lover answered by an innuendo,
which at once astonished and doubly enraged her. She eagerly demanded
explanation; and his lordship,