To her the words--“Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” are but idle prattle. A mere formula of the Church, a creed which her blind unbelief in all good things makes her mock at and fling aside like the voice of the wind. Gabrielle is one part Belgravian and three parts French, and has the faults of both. Honour and loyalty are dead letters to such women. Strong and practical of nature, animal in instinct and passion, savage and cruel in greed of love, is it likely that women possessing such qualifications can wage war and be beaten? Cunning, craftiness, deceit and falsity, ranged against truth, innocence, purity and simple mindedness, form a very uneven contest, my readers. And, in spite of the pleasant doctrine that goodness rears its head over badness, it is a fact that human creatures of the Gabrielle Beranger type have often a better time of it in this world than their purer sisterhood. Gabrielle is not going to leave Lord Delaval in ignorance of her sufferings, for she is not of the nature of a violet, or likely to let concealment like a worm, &c., &c. “Are you going to marry Zai?” she asks abruptly. She has come face to face with him--accidentally on purpose--in a walk that is out of sight of the windows at Sandilands. Lord Delaval, Greek almost in indolence and love of rest and luxury, has one habit to which most of our golden youth are not given--a habit of rising early and going out early. So that Gabrielle has him all to herself this bright sunny morning, while the Beranger family are still enjoying their slumbers. For an instant, surprise--and it must be confessed irritation at meeting her--keeps him silent, so she repeats-- “Are you going to marry Zai?” He looks at her--to say that he quails would be perhaps going too far--but he is unmistakably nervous. There is more moral cowardice in men than in women as a rule. She stands like an image of Nemesis, right in the centre of the path--immovable--a trifle formidable, her tall figure pulled well up to its fullest height, her features rigid and white as a sheet, and only her big black eyes burning with quite a hungry ferocious look as they rest on the handsome blond face of the man who has made love to her. How remarkably sorry he is for it now! But there is no denying it; he has certainly made love to her, under the cover of some incomprehensible doctrine all about “affinities,” in which he believes no whit himself; he has beguiled her affections, or rather her passions, by the sweet words that are as sweet now as when Adam whispered them to his Eve in Paradise; he has beguiled her by soft treacherous kisses, in which the beak of the cruel vulture is hid beneath the tender touch of the dove, until this woman has paid him back by an enduring but terrible love that is not only a nuisance but may be worse.