Events rendered it necessary that he should visit the metropolis, and twice during the autumn he had already visited it—alone. And twice he had returned to his beautiful young wife, who hailed his coming as a heathen priestess would have greeted the advent of her god, more alienated, colder, and more causeless than before. Since he had last returned, the coldness was converted into cruelty, active, malicious, fiendish cruelty. Hard words, incessant taunts, curses—nay, blows! Yet still, faithful to the end and fond, she still loved him. Still would have laid down the dregs of the life which had been so happy till she knew him, and which he had made so wretched, to win one of his old fond smiles, one of his once caressing tones, one of his heartfelt kisses. Alas! alas! Theresa! Too late, it was all too late! He had learned, for the first time, in London, the value of his rank, his wealth, his position. He had been flattered by men of lordly birth, _fêted_ and fondled by the fairest and noblest ladies of the land. He had learned to be ambitious—he had begun to thirst for social eminence, for political ascendency, for place, power, dominion. His talents had created a favorable impression in high quarters—his enthusiasm and daring rashness had made an effect—he was already a marked man among the conspirators, who were aiming to pull down the sovereignty of the Stuarts. Hints had been even thrown out to him, of the possibility of allying himself to interests the most important, through the beautiful and gorgeous daughter of one of the oldest of the peers of England. The hint had been thrown out, moreover, by a young gentleman of his own county—by one who had seen Theresa. And when he started and expressed his wonder, and alluded tremulously to his _wife_, he had been answered by a smile of intelligence, coupled with an assurance that every one understood all about Theresa Allan; and that surely he would not be such a fool as to sacrifice such prospects for a little village paramour. “The story of the concealed wedding took in nobody, my lad,” the speaker added, “except those, like myself, who chose to believe any thing you chose to assert. Think of it, _mon cher_; and, believe me, that _liaison_ will be no hindrance.” And Jasper had thought of it. The thought had never been, for one moment, absent from his mind, sleeping or waking, since it first found admission to the busy chambers of his brain. From that unfortunate day, his life had been but one series of plots and schemes, all base, atrocious, horrible—some even murderous. Since that day his cruelty had not been casual; it had a meaning, and a method, both worthy of the arch fiend’s devising.