"It must have been a great disappointment to Del Castello," said
Trevalyon, inwardly applying the lash, "to winter elsewhere."
"N'importe," said Lady Esmondet, seeing the sadness of expression, "we, have so much of the London fog; he, has his villa and the south always."
"But he could have been here with all his elegant recherche surroundings, only for me," and as he silently thought the lash went down.
In the villa, many things beautiful and rare occupied their attention; in the small library were some deep German and English books on philosophy, with Tennyson in every style of dress; also Byron, with novels of all tone and colour; as Vaura moved about among the treasures of the absent Marquis, Trevalyon, watching her intently, tortured himself by imagining that she handled everything lovingly, read snatches from his books tenderly.
"What a couple they would have been," he thought, as Vaura's syren voice read aloud some marked passages from the poets; "even if I can clear myself of this hateful scandal, I have only the gloomy 'towers' to offer her, while he has his sunny palaces in the lands or climes she loves so well."
And Lady Esmondet seeing his intent gaze following Vaura, and observing his quiet thought,
"He is unhappy, and dreads lest she come to love the handsome Spaniard, while daily amongst his treasures, with his silent pictured face watching her from the walls; I wonder how it is; has she refused him, and accepted the villa as slight atonement, or is this the beginning of the end, and that she will give herself to him; alas for dear Lionel if so."
"How selfish I am," said Vaura, impulsively closing the book from which she had read aloud a few marked passages in the sadly sweet "Prisoner of Chillon." "You both look weary, how is it I did not notice it before? come away god-mother mine; uncle Eric would say I am not redeeming my promise to take care of you; goodnight, Captain Trevalyon," giving him her hand, the soft touch of which seemed as a new revelation to him, reinvigorating him as it were, but only in the contact, for alone he is again a prey to gloomy forebodings which crowd upon him, so as to seem to stifle him; loosening his collar and tie, and throwing himself on the bed, he tells himself, "What am I, in comparison to him? his unclouded life, at least as far as human eye can tell, with the looks of an Adonis, his immense wealth, his southern blood, eloquent tongue, and life in climes kissed by the sun. I fear he will woe her again; and is it in woman to come to me; even though I give the love of my life in preference to all that the Fates give in him; alas! my knowledge of them tells me no; yes, I know she has smiled tenderly on me, bat is not this because of her old remembrance of me—as part of her by-gone life in her loved home; yes I fear it is, or because she is playing with my heart as she has with others; heavens, how unmanned I am, Father," and his hands are clasped reverently, "pity me, steep my soul in forgetfulness, and let me remember naught, save that Thou ruleth all," when, as if in answer to his imploring cry, slumber, fitful it is true and broken by dreams came to him; when now fully awake again in slippered feet, and with his pipe, he noiselessly steps out into the night, pacing the verandah to and fro, or leaning against one of its columns, thinks on of the past and present, when in the dim future, the vast unknown, he feels the necessity of calm; else this scandal will so overwhelm him in the waves of unrest, as to cause his life to be a wreck, and Vaura to be indeed, and in truth, lost to him forever more. In the determined quiet of a man controling self, he now again, this time undressing, takes to his bed and gains an hour's sleep ere it is time to rise for a new day.