Unprincipled as Vargrave was, it is not, perhaps, judging him too mildly to say that, had he succeeded in obtaining Evelyn's hand and fortune, he would have shrunk from the baseness he now meditated. To step coldly into the very post of which he, and he alone, had been the cause of depriving his earliest patron and nearest relative; to profit by the betrayal of his own party; to damn himself eternally in the eyes of his ancient friends; to pass down the stream of history as a mercenary apostate,--from all this Vargrave must have shrunk, had he seen one spot of honest ground on which to maintain his footing. But now the waters of the abyss were closing over his head; he would have caught at a straw; how much more consent to be picked up by the vessel of an enemy! All objection, all scruple, vanished at once. And the "barbaric gold" "of Ormus and of Ind" glittered before the greedy eyes of the penniless adventurer! Not a day was now to be lost. How fortunate that a written proposition, from which it was impossible to recede, had been made to him before the failure of his matrimonial projects had become known! Too happy to quit Paris, he would set off on the morrow, and conclude in person the negotiation. Vargrave glanced towards the clock; it was scarcely past eleven. What revolutions are worked in moments! Within an hour he had lost a wife, a noble fortune, changed the politics of his whole life, stepped into a Cabinet office, and was already calculating how much a governor-general of India could lay by in five years! But it was only eleven o'clock. He had put off Mr. Howard's visit till twelve; he wished so much to see him, and learn all the London gossip connected with the recent events. Poor Mr. Douce! Vargrave had already forgotten _his_ existence!--he rang his bell hastily. It was some time before his servant answered. Promptitude and readiness were virtues that Lord Vargrave peremptorily demanded in a servant; and as he paid the best price for the articles--less in wages than in plunder--he was generally sure to obtain them. "Where the deuce have you been? This is the third time I have rung! you ought to be in the anteroom!" "I beg your lordship's pardon; but I was helping Mr. Maltravers's valet to find a key which he dropped in the courtyard." "Mr. Maltravers! Is he at this hotel?" "Yes, my lord; his rooms are just overhead." "Humph! Has Mr. Howard engaged a lodging here?" "No, my lord. He left word that he was gone to his aunt, Lady Jane." "Ah, Lady Jane--lives at Paris--so she does; Rue Chaussee d'Antin--you know the House? Go immediately--go yourself; don't trust to a messenger--and beg Mr. Howard to return with you. I want to see him instantly." "Yes, my lord."