Daily the struggle endured.  His father wrote to him, begging him by the love he had for him to return.  From that hour Richard burnt unread all the letters he received.  He knew too well how easily he could persuade himself:  words from without might tempt him and quite extinguish the spark of honourable feeling that tortured him, and that he clung to in desperate self-vindication.

To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both a dangerous and thankless office.  It is, nevertheless, one that fair women greatly prize, and certain of them professionally follow.  Lady Judith, as far as her sex would permit, was also of the Titans in their battle against the absolute Gods; for which purpose, mark you, she had married a lord incapable in all save his acres.  Her achievements she kept to her own mind:  she did not look happy over them.  She met Richard accidentally in Paris; she saw his state; she let him learn that she alone on earth understood him.  The consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in her train.  It soothed him to be near a woman.  Did she venture her guess as to the cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a facility women have, and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught to participate in.  She spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, much as he might speak of his—­ vaguely, and with self-blame.  And she understood him.  How the dark unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a woman’s eye!  We are at compound interest immediately:  so much richer than we knew!—­almost as rich as we dreamed!  But then the instant we are away from her we find ourselves bankrupt, beggared.  How is that?  We do not ask.  We hurry to her and bask hungrily in her orbs.  The eye must be feminine to be thus creative:  I cannot say why.  Lady Judith understood Richard, and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her more feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing her.  The spirit must rest; he was weak with what he suffered.

Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhineland:  Titans, male and female, who had not displaced Jove, and were now adrift, prone on floods of sentiment.  The blue-flocked peasant swinging behind his oxen of a morning, the gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the jackass-driver, even the doctor of those regions, have done more for their fellows.  Horrible reflection!  Lady Judith is serene above it, but it frets at Richard when he is out of her shadow.  Often wretchedly he watches the young men of his own age trooping to their work.  Not cloud-work theirs!  Work solid, unambitious, fruitful!

Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero.  He gaped blindfolded for anything, and she gave him the map of Europe in tatters.  He swallowed it comfortably.  It was an intoxicating cordial.  Himself on horseback overriding wrecks of Empires!  Well might common sense cower with the meaner animals at the picture.  Tacitly they agreed to recast the civilized globe.  The quality of vapour is