While Lord Montressor pursues his search for Estelle, we must take up the fortunes of some other persons who are concerned in our narrative. But first a brief review of Victorie L’Orient’s course seems necessary to the reader’s better understanding of what follows:— “Tis hard for human actions to account, Whether from reason, or from impulse only,” writes the lamented Thomas Hood. It would certainly be difficult to explain satisfactorily the motives of the course of conduct pursued by Victoire L’Orient toward the hapless lady whose evil fortune had placed her peace, if not her destiny, in his power. One would have naturally supposed that, being released from his penal life, he would have proceeded directly to England, and while her hand was yet free, would have openly demanded possession of the woman whom he claimed as his wife. Why he did not do so—why, on the contrary, he chose to wait for the hour when she should bestow her hand on another, to humble her before the whole world, is the unresolved problem. Of course every theory of his motives must be purely speculative. Judging, however, from what we have already seen of his character and have heard of his history, it is neither unreasonable nor uncharitable, to suppose the following to have been the case: A man like Victoire L’Orient, of depressed moral and intellectual nature, usually feels a strong antagonism to a woman who is brought into constant and rebuking comparison with himself, especially when that woman is his own wife, whom he deems should of right be in all respects his inferior and subordinate. Very soon must Monsieur Victoire have discovered the moral and intellectual excellence of the young creature whom he had ensnared, and consequently the wide disparity of character between himself and her. This alone was sufficient to have galled a spirit so egotistical as his own. And when we remember that in addition to this, Estelle inevitably detected his utter unworthiness, and that, notwithstanding her sweet patience and forbearance, she must unavoidably, through the very truthfulness and ingenuousness of her character, have revealed the low estimation in which she held him, we need not feel any degree of surprise that his selfish passion for her was largely alloyed with hate, and that his desire to possess, was quite equalled by his wish to humble her. With these feelings and purposes, having been pardoned, or having served out his time in Algiers, he embarked in the “Duc D’Anjou” for France. Picked up by an Algerine corsair from the wreck of that vessel, he had been reconveyed to the Barbary States. Escaping thence, he once more returned to Europe. He came to England to claim the hand of Estelle, or, failing to obtain it, to extort money from her parents as the price of silence and absence.