I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint.

I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came to a quarrel or even a dispute.  They were not a couple likely to indulge in the amantium irae; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of Flora Bellasys to have seen it.  Once, I remember, after sitting some time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other letters, lay a little triangular note unopened.  He broke the seal and read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp.  Then he rose and shook all his mighty limbs—­as the Danite Titan might have done before his locks were shorn—­and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief.  I longed to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized the griffe of the fatal Delilah.  But I knew how dangerous it was to attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he had escaped the toils.  Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions and temptations that the future might have in store.  I could hardly keep my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora Bellasys—­triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning’s work had been—­and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness she was plotting to overthrow.

She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often accompanied by his fiancee.  They seemed to be on the most ordinary footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys court, vacated by Livingstone.  I can not trace the threads of the web of Circe.  She concealed them well at the time; and since—­between the knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which I have never tried to penetrate.

I can only tell the end, which came very speedily.

CHAPTER XX.

     “’Tis good to be merry and wise;
       ’Tis good to be honest and true;
     ’Tis good to be off with the old love
       Before you are on with the new.”

There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace’s villa at Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong.  Every one liked those parties.  The hostess was young and very charming, while her husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his own department of the commissariat.  His wines were things to dream of in after years, when, like Curran, “confined to the Port” of a remote country inn, one sacrifices one’s self heroically on the altar of the landlord for the good of the house.