Meanwhile scandal and gossip were still busy with the stolen marriage and its consequences. Mysterious paragraphs had appeared in some of the public prints. If newspapers at that time had been illustrated, there might have been portraits of the bride and bridegroom, or at least of Rhoda, and of the travelling carriage. But the kindred of Asmodeus, who in these days haunt town and country with the implements of Daguerre, and embellish our journals with their woodcuts, had not yet acquired those pictorial aids, and were obliged to content themselves with old-fashioned letterpress. What their descendants may arrive at, especially in alliance with the disciples of Mesmer, to whom distance is no object, and brick and mortar no impediment, it is hard to anticipate. The electric telegraph is likely to be regarded as a slow concern; everybody will know his neighbour's thoughts; the old fable of transparent bosoms will be realized; and the gift of speech will cease to be of any use.

This consummation seems, however, at present rather remote. If we were of a misanthropic turn, and familiar with any good-humoured demon, lame or otherwise, we should trouble him to take us to and fro between the home and haunts of some well-seeming family, and the gloomy chambers where AstrÆa holds her revels. We should be present one day at the dinner or the ball, and the next day we should go among crumbling papers and musty parchments. We should follow the unconscious prey to the levee or drawing-room, and then we should repair to the dark den, where the spoiler was quietly and assiduously preparing the pit-fall. Often when we look up to the lofty buildings inhabited especially by the servants of Themis, we are led to think of the devices which may there be silently undermining the stability of some well-to-do house, now standing fair and seemly in the eyes of the world. Far away back, in some ancient record, the lynx-eyed practitioner has lighted upon the trail: step by step he advances, fortifying himself at every pause, until the prize is full in view, and the filing of a bill or the service of a writ informs the unsuspecting victim that his all is at stake; destroying in one moment the whole security of his life, and entangling him in a maze of litigation, to endure possibly for years, and too probably to leave him, even if successful, an impoverished and broken-hearted man. In these days of iron and steam, there is nothing romantic but the law.

And we are not thinking of the mere lovers of chicane, who occasionally disgrace the profession, but of what may happen in the career of the most honourable of its votaries. It was thus that the downfall of Trevethlan was prepared in one office, and that its restoration was now being achieved in another. Little had Randolph dreamed of the plot that was devising against him, and in which the lawyers were but unwitting agents: little did Esther imagine the counter-stroke which was now impending, and to which double weight was to be given by the conduct of her late protÉgÉ.

Michael Sinson, baffled in his new attempt against Randolph, had returned sulkily to London. Among the first intelligence which met his eyes in the daily journals was the suicide of his miserable slave. He gnashed his teeth as he read it, and perceived that Rereworth had been in communication with the deceased. Had Everope been a double traitor? Sinson could not free himself from the idea. The ground seemed to be shaking under his feet. After hours of irritating uncertainty, he sought an interview with Mr. Truby, in hope of discovering whether anything had transpired. But he met a very cold reception, and obtained no solution of his anxiety. The lawyer, however, demanded his address, and he, after giving it, went immediately and moved to other quarters.

He mused of coming forward himself as an informant to the other side, but if they were already in possession of the truth, to do so would be merely to place himself in their power. Then he made a futile attempt to gain admission to his former patroness; but being turned from the door with contumely, he thought of his supposed power over her, and fancied that it might yield him both security and profit. With this idea he made his way to Mr. Pendarrel at his office. Here he acquired the knowledge which he had vainly sought from Mr. Truby.

"Do you know, sir," Mr. Pendarrel asked him, "that it is rumoured the evidence at the trial is upset? That they have found relics of the clergyman who really performed that marriage, and that steps are already taken to reverse the judgment?"

Sinson, although he almost expected something of the kind, was staggered by the announcement.

"Now, if this be so," continued Mr. Pendarrel, "it will be strange if you, sir, were not a party to the fraud that will have been perpetrated. Do you mark me?"

He spoke in the cold and deliberate manner which characterized his demeanour whenever he was independent of his wife. Sinson recovered from his first surprise, and assumed an attitude of confidence.

"Whatever I have done," he said, "I have done by the orders of Mrs. Pendarrel. I am now come to receive my recompense."

"You have been well paid, sir," answered Mr. Pendarrel; "there is nothing due to you."

"Perhaps not, for what is past," Sinson said; "but there is for what is to come. You tell me there are rumours of fraud: and I say that Mrs. Pendarrel has authorized whatever has been done. I have her letters. They may be valuable."

"You are a cool scoundrel," said Mr. Pendarrel, "upon my word. But you do not gull me with so simple a device. What hinders me, sirrah, but that I should instantly give you into custody?"

"Nothing, perhaps," was the answer, "but the disagreeable consequences. If you would only be so good as consult my lady, it might change your mind."

"Pooh, sir!" said Esther's husband, "you have overshot your mark. Go now about your business, and don't dare to come here again, or you know the result."

He rang his bell, and ordered the disconcerted intruder to be shown out. Sinson went into the neighbouring park and read over the documents on which he had so fondly relied. And, regarded in the light thrown upon them by Mr. Pendarrel's contempt, they presented him with no consolation in his fall. On the other hand, he had again unwittingly advanced the interests of his detested rival.

Mr. Truby, it may have been observed, frequently in matters of business communicated directly with the wife of his nominal client. When Mr. Pendarrel went from home that day, he found Esther in a state of even unusual depression. She had received a letter from the lawyer, acquainting her there were strong grounds for believing that the main facts on which they had relied at the trial were fabricated for the occasion, and that, as his own character might be implicated by any concealment, he was resolved to probe the matter to the bottom.

"Oh, Gertrude!" said Esther to her constant attendant, "what will become of me? Among them, they are breaking my heart."

She was in this dejected condition when her husband came home. Everything concurred to make him exceedingly desirous to bring about at least a formal reconciliation with the fugitive couple. He read Mr. Truby's letter, and told his wife of the visit he had received that morning.

"And, my dear," said he, "this person would make us accomplices in whatever fraud has been perpetrated."

"Us, Mr. Pendarrel!" Esther ejaculated. "You are jesting, sir, and in a very sorry manner."

But she recollected Michael's threats, and could not help trembling.

"Not I, madam," her husband protested, adopting for a moment her own formal mode of address, "not I, upon my life. Sinson declares that he has letters authorizing all he did, which he pretty plainly admitted to have been more than was honest. And these letters he threatened to use, unless I would purchase them."

"You did not!" Mrs. Pendarrel exclaimed.

"Of course I did not, my dear," was the reply. "I turned his absurd threats upon himself. But it is unpleasant to have these things said. And you see Truby's letter bears out the rumours."

"Ah, me!" Esther sighed, almost wringing her hands, "to what am I fallen?"

"My dear," her husband ventured to urge, "it is time this unhappy matter were settled. After the wrong which will have been done to Mr. Trevethlan"—he started when the name had passed his lips—"after that, I say, we must overlook what has occurred since."

"Do what you will," muttered his wife, "my part in the affair is over. But are you sure they will accept forgiveness? Has he asked for it?"

"Oh yes, dear mother," said Gertrude. "Let me intercede. My poor sister has no peace till she has thrown herself at your feet, and Randolph has none while she is unhappy."

"Well, well," Esther murmured, "I have no more to say. Bring them here, if you will, Gertrude. And since it must be so, the sooner the better."

"And really, my dear Esther," said the husband, "the match is not so disadvantageous after all. You see it will unite the properties, and if Trevethlan is now but a small estate, it is at least unencumbered, which is more than we could say of Tolpeden; and I remember that Mildred was telling me once—"

"Never mind now, papa," said Mrs. Winston, who saw that every word he uttered was a dagger in her mother's heart. "Let me go and prepare my sister to come home."

Indeed, Esther's humiliation required no aggravating circumstances. She was deeply wounded in the tenderest parts of her character. Pride, ambition, and love of rule had all been mortified and abused. And now she succumbed. She resigned any further struggle, and yielded to her victorious foe. Her spirit and mind were alike brought down. After the above conversation she retired to her own room, and drew her miniature from her bosom, and looked long and stedfastly on the tranquil lineaments. Again she reviewed her whole life, and again she fell upon the ever-recurring question—Did he then love me? And she scarcely knew whether an answer in the affirmative would give her most of joy or of regret.

The man who had so long ministered to her will, was in his humbler sphere as completely overthrown. But his feelings were bitter and fierce, and no trace of compunction or repentance was to be found among them. On reconsidering his threats, he clearly saw their futility. When he partly disclosed his story to a scandal-mongering individual with a view to extortion, he was only laughed at for his pains. And he very clearly perceived, that for himself there was nothing in prospect but the penalty of perjury. On every hand he felt that he had been thwarted and defeated. The man whom he knew that he hated had wedded the lady whom Michael fancied he loved, and he foresaw the reconciliation that would make them happy. While he himself, instead of being on the high road to fortune, was an outcast from society, disgraced and infamous.

Yet did one matter detain him in London. One hope remained to save him from absolute despair. By one chance he might even yet retrieve himself, and aspire to a certain position in the world. Wealth, he fancied, would cover a multitude of sins. Cunning had failed him, luck might stand his friend. Day by day he sought the ancient hall, where the wheel of fortune, no longer a mere symbol, dispensed blanks and prizes to a host of care-worn worshippers. And of all that feverish crowd, no votary watched the numbers as they turned up, with more desperate eyes than the peasant of Cornwall. Reckless alike of the jests of the indifferent, of the boisterous glee of the fortunate, and of the execrations of the ruined, he awaited his turn with intense excitement. The great prizes were still in the wheel. He might have realised a very handsome profit on his ticket. But he would scarcely have parted with it for anything short of the highest amount in the list. Little he cared when the revolving cylinder threw out a paltry thousand; no such trifle was an object to him. But he ground his teeth when a number which was not his, appeared in connection with a prize of twenty thousand pounds, and when the very next turn of the wheel declared his ticket—blank—he crushed his hat over his eyes, and slunk out of the hall. He slunk away from town: it was his final leave-taking of the metropolis.