There was a terrible uncertainty in the future. What were the feelings
of Lady Montfort towards himself? Friendly, kind, affectionate, in a
certain sense, even devoted, no doubt; but all consistent with a deep
and determined friendship which sought and wished for no return more
ardent. But now she was free. Yes, but would she again forfeit her
freedom? And if she did, would it not be to attain some great end,
probably the great end of her life? Lady Montfort was a woman of
far-reaching ambition. In a certain degree, she had married to secure
her lofty aims; and yet it was only by her singular energy, and the
playfulness and high spirit of her temperament, that the sacrifice had
not proved a failure; her success, however, was limited, for the ally on
who she had counted rarely assisted and never sympathised with her. It
was true she admired and even loved her husband; her vanity, which was
not slight, was gratified by her conquest of one whom it had seemed no
one could subdue, and who apparently placed at her feet all the power
and magnificence which she appreciated.

Poor Endymion, who loved her passionately, over whom she exercised the
influence of a divinity, who would do nothing without consulting her,
and who was moulded, and who wished to be moulded, by her inspiring
will, was also a shrewd man of the world, and did not permit his
sentiment to cloud his perception of life and its doings. He felt that
Lady Montfort had fallen from a lofty position, and she was not of a
temperament that would quietly brook her fate. Instead of being the
mistress of castles and palaces, with princely means, and all the
splendid accidents of life at her command, she was now a dowager with
a jointure! Still young, with her charms unimpaired, heightened even by
the maturity of her fascinating qualities, would she endure this? She
might retain her friendship for one who, as his sister ever impressed
upon him, had no root in the land, and even that friendship, he felt
conscious, must yield much of its entireness and intimacy to the
influence of new ties; but for their lives ever being joined together,
as had sometimes been his wild dreams, his cheek, though alone, burned
with the consciousness of his folly and self-deception.

"He is one of our rising statesmen," whispered the captain of the vessel
to a passenger, as Endymion, silent, lonely, and absorbed, walked, as
was his daily custom, the quarterdeck. "I daresay he has a good load
on