money, had led him to make
the bargain, but now that it was done his better judgment rose up
against it. For the truth may as well be told at once, although he
would as yet scarcely acknowledge it to himself, Edward Cossey was
already violently enamoured of Ida. He was by nature a passionate man,
and as it chanced she had proved the magnet with power to draw his
passion. But as the reader is aware, there existed another
complication in his life for which he was not perhaps entirely
responsible. When still quite a youth in mind, he had suddenly found
himself the object of the love of a beautiful and enthralling woman,
and had after a more or less severe struggle yielded to the
temptation, as, out of a book, many young men would have done. Now to
be the object of the violent affection of such a woman as Belle Quest
is no doubt very flattering and even charming for a while. But if that
affection is not returned in kind, if in short the gentleman does not
love the lady quite as warmly as she loves him, then in course of time
the charm is apt to vanish and even the flattery to cease to give
pleasure. Also, when as in the present case the connection is wrong in
itself and universally condemned by society, the affection which can
still triumph and endure on both sides must be of a very strong and
lasting order. Even an unprincipled man dislikes the acting of one
long lie such as an intimacy of the sort necessarily involves, and if
the man happens to be rather weak than unprincipled, the dislike is
apt to turn to loathing, some portion of which will certainly be
reflected on to the partner of his ill-doing.

These are general principles, but the case of Edward Cossey offered no
exception to them, indeed it illustrated them well. He had never been
in love with Mrs. Quest; to begin with she had shown herself too much
in love with him to necessitate any display of emotion on his part.
Her violent and unreasoning passion wearied and alarmed him, he never
knew what she would do next and was kept in a continual condition of
anxiety and irritation as to what the morrow might bring forth. Too
sure of her unaltering attachment to have any pretext for jealousy, he
found it exceedingly irksome to be obliged to avoid giving cause for
it on his side, which, however, he dreaded doing lest he should
thereby bring about some overwhelming catastrophe. Mrs. Quest was, as
he well knew, not a woman who would pause to consider consequences if
onc