But Spikeman was far from sympathizing with her views, nor had he any intention to keep his promise.  At the time when he inveigled Edmund Dunning into entrusting property to his hands, his affairs were in an embarrassed condition, and he needed then and now the funds to save him from ruin.  And again, hypocrite though he was in some respects, he was not altogether so.  A man of violent passions, and unscrupulous in their gratification, deluding himself with the idea that having once tasted the sweets of justification, (as he fancied,) his condition was one of safety, and that the sins which reigned in the members of his body could not reach his soul, he was yet zealous for the faith which he had adopted, and devoted to the interests of the colony.  It was to this devotion mainly that he owed his dignity of Assistant.  As a Puritan, he was, or at least believed himself to be, opposed to a marriage between Eveline and Arundel on the same principle which had at first influenced her father, and been corrected only by the dawning light of eternity.  Shortly before the decease of his friend, Spikeman had frequently, though never in the presence of Eveline, combated Dunning’s resolution with which he had been made acquainted, but in vain.  Had he dared, he would have resorted to one or more of the elders to exert their potent influence, but this would have been to betray the secret, and in case of their failure, might have placed himself in an unpleasant predicament.  He concluded it was better to lock it up in his own breast, and so remain master of his actions and of her destiny, at least till her majority, which lacked two years before attainment.  During that time, his circumstances might change—­she might decease—­no one knew what was in the future.

It is not, therefore, surprising that the Assistant did not write to England to inform Edmund Dunning’s relatives of his death; much less that he did not inform Arundel of the fact.  Months slowly dragged by, and yet the expecting girl received no word from home.  At first Spikeman accounted for it by the length of time required to make the passage between the countries; afterwards by the supposition that the letters might have failed, or intimating that Arundel had probably changed his mind.  A cold pang, as if she had been stabbed by an icicle, pierced the bosom of Eveline at this cruel suggestion, and she felt utterly desolute.  What, however, frightened and depressed her spirit, only roused the indignation of Prudence Rix, her attendant from England, who even then had a sharper insight into the character of the Assistant than her mistress.

“Hey-day!” she exclaimed; “to think that Master Miles, the handsomest and darlingest young gentleman in Devonshire, and who, if he was only a painter, looked grander and gave away more gold pieces than many a lord she’d known, and who worshipped Mistress Eveline like some pagans she’d heard of did the sun, should think of forgetting her!  It was precious nonsense.  For her part, if she was Mistress Eveline, she would write to him herself, without letting old vinegar-face know anything about it.”