The picture had also a darker side, which was too often turned towards him. If he felt hesitation when he regarded its brighter aspect, as soon as this was dimmed, the whole current of his feelings turned the other way; and he called himself villain, for dreaming of allying Ethel, not to poverty alone, but to its worst consequences and disgrace, in the shape of debt. "I am a beggar," he thought; "one of many wants, and unable to provide for any;--the most poverty-stricken of beggars, who has pledged away even his liberty, were it claimed of him. I look forward to the course of years with disgust. I cannot calculate the ills that may occur, or with how tremendous a weight the impending ruin may fall. I can bear it alone; but did I see _her_ humiliated, whom I would gladly place on a throne,--by heavens! I could not endure life on such terms! and a pistol, or some other dreadful means, would put an end to an existence become intolerable." As these thoughts fermented within him, he longed to pour them out before Ethel; to unload his mind of its care, to express the sincere affection that led him to her side, and yet urged him to exile himself for ever. He rode over each day to Richmond, intent on such a design; but as he proceeded, the fogs and clouds that thickened round his soul grew lighter. At first his pace was regulated; as he drew nearer, he pressed his horse's flank with impatient heel, and bounded forward. Each turn in the road was a step nearer the sunshine. Now the bridge, the open field, the winding lane, were passed; the walls of her abode, and its embowered windows, presented themselves;--they met; and the glad look that welcomed him drove far away every thought of banishment, and dispelled at once every remnant of doubt and despondency. This state of things might have gone on much longer,--already had it been protracted for two months,--but for an accidental conversation between Lady Lodore and Villiers. Since the morning after the opera, they had scarcely seen each other. Edward's heart was too much occupied to permit him to join in the throng of a ball-room; and they had no chance of meeting, except in general society. One evening, at the opera, the lady who accompanied Lady Lodore, asked a gentleman, who had just come into their box, "What had become of Edward Villiers?--he was never to be seen?" "He is going to be married," was the reply: "he is in constant attendance on the fair lady at Richmond." "I had not heard of this," observed Lady Lodore, who, for Horatio's sake, felt an interest for his favourite cousin. "It is very little known. The _fiancée_ lives out of the world, and no one can tell any thing about her. I did hear her name. Young Craycroft has seen them riding together perpetually in Richmond Park and on Wimbledon Common, he told me. Miss Fitzroy--no;--Miss Fitz-something it is;--Fitzgeorge?--no;--Fitzhenry?--yes; Miss Fitzhenry is the name."