“He could paint well there!” she thought, happily, already seeing in her mind’s eye the “Great Hall” transformed into an artist’s studio—­“and I almost think I could carry on the farm—­Priscilla would help me,—­and we know just how Dad liked things to be done—­ if—­if Robin went away.  And the master of the house would again be a true Jocelyn!”

The whole plan seemed perfectly natural and feasible.  Only one obstacle presented itself like a dark shadow on the brightness of her dream—­and that was her own “base” birth.  The brand of illegitimacy was upon her,—­and whereas once she alone had known what she judged to be a shameful secret, now two others shared it with her—­Miss Leigh and Lord Blythe.  They would never betray it—­ no!—­but they could not alter what unkind fate had done for her.  This was one reason why she was glad that Amadis de Jocelyn had not as yet spoken of their marriage.

“For I should have to tell him!” she thought, woefully—­“I should have to say that I am the illegitimate daughter of Pierce Armitage—­and then—­perhaps he would not marry me—­he might change—­ah no!—­he could not!—­he would not!—­he loves me too dearly!  He would never let me go—­he wants me always!  We are all the world to each other!—­nothing could part us now!”

And so the time drifted on—­and with its drifting her work drifted too, and only one all-absorbing passion possessed her life with its close and consuming fire.  Amadis de Jocelyn was an expert in the seduction of a soul—­little by little he taught her to judge all men as worthless save himself, and all opinions unwarrantable and ill-founded unless he confirmed them.  And, leading her away from the contemplation of high visions, he made her the blind worshipper of a very inadequate idol.  She was happy in her faith, and yet not altogether sure of happiness.  For there are two kinds of love—­one with strong wings which lift the soul to a dazzling perfection of immortal destiny,—­the other with gross and heavy chains which fetter every hope and aspiration and drag the finest intelligence down to dark waste and nothingness.

CHAPTER IX

In affairs of love a woman is perhaps most easily ensnared by a man who can combine passion with pleasantry and hot pursuit with social tact and diplomacy.  Amadis de Jocelyn was an adept at this kind of thing—­he was, if it may be so expressed, a refined libertine, loving women from a purely physical sense of attraction and pleasure conveyed to himself, and obtusely ignorant of the needs or demands of their higher natures.  From a mental or intellectual standpoint all women to him were alike, made to be “managed” alike, used alike, and alike set aside when their use was done with.  The leaven of the Jew or the Turk was in the temperament of this descendant of a long line of French nobles, who had gained their chief honours by killing men, ravishing women and plundering