Produced by Dagny; and by David Widger Corrected and updated text and HTML PG Editions of the complete 11 volume set may be found at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9774/9774.txt https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9774/pg9774-images.html BOOK IX. "Woe, woe: all things are clear."--SOPHOCLES: OEd. Tyr. 754. CHAPTER I. THE privilege that statesmen ever claim, Who private interest never yet pursued, But still pretended 'twas for others' good. . . . . . . From hence on every humorous wind that veered With shifted sails a several course you steered. _Absalom and Achitophel_, Part ii. LORD VARGRAVE had for more than a fortnight remained at the inn at M-----, too ill to be removed with safety in a season so severe. Even when at last, by easy stages, he reached London, he was subjected to a relapse; and his recovery was slow and gradual. Hitherto unused to sickness, he bore his confinement with extreme impatience; and against the commands of his physician insisted on continuing to transact his official business, and consult with his political friends in his sick-room; for Lumley knew well, that it is most pernicious to public men to be considered failing in health,--turkeys are not more unfeeling to a sick brother than politicians to an ailing statesman; they give out that his head is touched, and see paralysis and epilepsy in every speech and every despatch. The time, too, nearly ripe for his great schemes, made it doubly necessary that he should exert himself, and prevent being shelved with a plausible excuse of tender compassion for his infirmities. As soon therefore as he learned that Legard had left Paris, he thought himself safe for a while in that quarter, and surrendered his thoughts wholly to his ambitious projects. Perhaps, too, with the susceptible vanity of a middle-aged man, who has had his _bonnes fortunes_, Lumley deemed, with Rousseau, that a lover, pale and haggard--just raised from the bed of suffering--is more interesting to friendship than attractive to love. He and Rousseau were, I believe, both mistaken; but that is a matter of opinion: they both thought very coarsely of women,--one from having no sentiment, and the other from having a sentiment that was but a disease. At length, just as Lumley was sufficiently recovered to quit his house, to appear at his office, and declare that his illness had wonderfully improved his constitution, intelligence from Paris, the more startling from being wholly unexpected, reached him. From Caroline he learned that Maltravers had proposed to Evelyn, and been accepted. From Maltravers himself he heard the confirmation of the news. The last letter was short, but kind and manly. He addressed Lord Vargrave as Evelyn's guardian; slightly alluded to the scruples he had entertained till Lord Vargrave's suit was broken off; and feeling the subject too delicate for a letter, expressed a desire to confer with Lumley