the year's end, he found himself free, and you happily
disposed of elsewhere," &c., &c. The drama advanced. Mrs. Lyndsay
evinced decided pulmonary symptoms. Her hectic cough returned; she could
not sleep; her days were numbered--a secret grief. Caroline implored
frankness, and, clasped to her mother's bosom, and compassionately
bedewed with tears, those hints were dropped into her ear which, though
so worded as to show the most indulgent forbearance to Darrell, and
rather as if in compassion for his weakness than in abhorrence of his
perfidy, made Caroline start with the indignation of revolted purity and
outraged pride. "Were this true, all would be indeed at an end between
us! But it is not true. Let it be proved."

"But, my dear, dear child, I could not stir in a matter so delicate.
I could not aid in breaking off a marriage so much to your worldly
advantage, unless you could promise that, in rejecting Mr. Darrell, you
would accept your cousin. In my wretched state of health, the anxious
thought of leaving you in the world literally penniless would kill me at
once."

"Oh, if Guy Darrell be false (but that is impossible)! do with me all
you will; to obey and please you would be the only comfort left to me."

Thus was all prepared for the final denouement. Mrs. Lyndsay had not
gone so far without a reliance on the means to accomplish her object,
and for these means she had stooped to be indebted to the more practical
villany of Matilda's husband.

Jasper, in this visit to Paris, had first formed the connection which
completed the wickedness of his perverted nature, with that dark
adventuress who has flitted shadow-like through part of this varying
narrative. Gabrielle Desmarets was then in her youth, notorious only for
the ruin she had inflicted on admiring victims, and the superb luxury
with which she rioted on their plunder. Captivated by the personal
advantages for which Jasper then was preeminently conspicuous, she
willingly associated her fortunes with his own. Gabrielle was one of
those incarnations of evil which no city but Paris can accomplish
with the same epicurean refinement, and vitiate into the same cynical
corruption. She was exceedingly witty, sharply astute, capable of acting
any part, carrying out any plot; and when it pleased her to simulate the
decorous and immaculate gentlewoman, she might have deceived the most
experienced roue. Jasper presented this Artiste to his unsuspecting
wife as a widow