"And a Devereaux he deems himself, and must continue to do so, till I return from Montreal. Old Trecarrel is going in command to India, and when matters are all squared here, I'll get Denzil on his Staff with ease. We have been the victims of circumstances; have I not a thousand times said, that if my uncle had discovered our marriage, we should have lost all? He is gone at last; but you know, Conny darling, that his ideas were simply absurd--in some respects suited only to the middle-ages--the middle ages do I say? By Jove, to those when the Anglo-Saxons wore coats of paint, and dyed their yellow hair blue. But are things arranged in this world wisely, think you, Constance?' "I dare not impugn the plans of a beneficent Providence." "But Providence never meant the conditions of life to turn out as they too often do." "How, Richard," she, asked gently; "I don't quite understand you?" "That the greatest number of the rich, the powerful and the most successful--by flukes, perhaps--are fools or knaves." "Ah, but if riches brought talent--the wealthy and powerful would be too happy, and Fate or Providence do not make them so." "I cannot express to you how my heart was wrung with jealous envy, and even with shame, when I saw Downie's family stand around my uncle's grave, and enjoying all the freedom and hospitality of Rhoscadzhel--even his cold-blooded, fashionable wife, too--and thought how my own three tender loves were debarred----" "And unknown--" "Yes----d--m it, unknown, and must be for a few weeks still, but time cures all evils, and it will cure this. Yet is not the gazetting of the two cousins, Denzil and the oldest of Downie's four boys, in one paragraph, and to my old corps, too a remarkable coincidence--all the more so, that they are ignorant of each other's existence?" "My poor Denzil--he is so bright and clever!" "Ay, more clever than ever I was. In my time, when I met you so happily in pleasant Montreal, one could be a fair average soldier without all the polyglot accomplishments so necessary now, when he who quits Sandhurst as a candidate for a commission direct, with five shillings and threepence per diem to further his extravagance, might quite as well come out for the Church or Bar, with the chance of a safer and better paid berth in either." "And he joins his regiment as a Devereaux--my poor boy!" "Still harping on that string!" said Richard, a little impatiently. "On my return when matters are all sorted and made clear by the legal documents, Denzil and Sybil must be simply told, that my succession to estates and a title have necessitated a change of name." "But our Denzil is no longer a boy--and I shall almost blush for my past duplicity, before my own girl!" "Come, come, Conny, this is foolish; what is done cannot be undone, and it is useless to cry over spilt milk."