But the result is the same; a
sudden revelation to ourselves of our secret purpose, and a recognition
of our perhaps long shadowed, but now masterful convictions.

A crisis of this kind occurred to Endymion the day when he returned to
his chambers, after having taken the oaths and his seat in the House of
Commons. He felt the necessity of being alone. For nearly the last three
months he had been the excited actor in a strange and even mysterious
drama. There had been for him no time to reflect; all he could aim
at was to comprehend, and if possible control, the present and urgent
contingency; he had been called upon, almost unceasingly, to do or to
say something sudden and unexpected; and it was only now, when the
crest of the ascent had been reached, that he could look around him and
consider the new world opening to his gaze.

The greatest opportunity that can be offered to an Englishman was now
his--a seat in the House of Commons. It was his almost in the first
bloom of youth, and yet after advantageous years of labour and political
training, and it was combined with a material independence on which he
never could have counted. A love of power, a passion for distinction, a
noble pride, which had been native to his early disposition, but which
had apparently been crushed by the enormous sorrows and misfortunes of
his childhood, and which had vanished, as it were, before the sweetness
of that domestic love which had been the solace of his adversity, now
again stirred their dim and mighty forms in his renovated, and, as it
were, inspired consciousness. "If this has happened at twenty-two,"
thought Endymion, "what may not occur if the average life of man be
allotted to me? At any rate, I will never think of anything else. I
have a purpose in life, and I will fulfil it. It is a charm that its
accomplishment would be the most grateful result to the two beings I
most love in the world."

So when Lady Montfort shortly after opened her views to Endymion as to
his visiting Paris, and his purpose in so doing, the seeds were thrown
on a willing soil, and he embraced her counsels with the deepest
interest. His intimacy with the Count of Ferroll was the completing
event of this epoch of his life.

Their acquaintance had been slight in England, for after the Montfort
Tournament the Count had been appointed to Paris, where he was required;
but he received Endymion with a cordiality which contrasted with his
usual demeanour, whi