"She is an accomplished actress," he said to himself; "and to the very last her policy has been defiance. And now my dream is ended, and I awake to a blank, joyless life. A strange fatality seems to have attended Sir Oswald Eversleigh and the inheritors of his wealth. He died broken-hearted by a woman's falsehood; my brother Lionel bestowed his best affections on the mercenary, fashionable coquette, Lydia Graham, who was ready to accept another lover within a few weeks of her pretended devotion to him; and lastly comes my misery at the hands of a wicked adventuress."
Douglas Dale resolved to leave London early next day. He returned to his Temple chambers, intending to start for the Continent the next morning.
But when the next day came he did not carry out his intention. He found himself disinclined to seek change of scene, which he felt could bring him no relief of mind. Go where he would, he could not separate himself from the bitter memories of the past few months.
He determined to remain in London; for, to the man who wishes to avoid the companionship of his fellow-men, there is no hermitage more secure than a lodging in the heart of busy, selfish London. He determined to remain, for in London he could obtain information as to the conduct of Paulina.
What would she do now that the stage-play was ended, and deception could no longer avail? Would she once more resume her old habits—open her saloons to the patrician gamblers of West-end London, and steep her weary, guilt-burdened soul in the mad intoxication of the gaming-table?
Would Sir Reginald Eversleigh again assume his old position in her household?—again become her friend and flatterer? She had affected to despise him; but that might have been only a part of the great deception of which Douglas had been the victim.
These were the questions the lonely, heartbroken man asked himself that night, as he sat brooding by his solitary hearth, no longer able to find pleasure in the nightly studies which had once been so delightful to him.
Ah! how deeply he must have loved that woman, when the memory of her guilt poisoned his existence! How madly he still clung to the thought of her!—how intensely he desired to penetrate the secrets of her life!