Having thus routed the enemy, Eustace returned to his hotel very well satisfied with his victory, which he hoped would be productive of good in removing the obstacle to the reconciliation of husband and wife. For his own part, he felt considerable astonishment at the self-abnegation of his conduct, seeing that he was doing his best to place the woman he loved so devotedly beyond any possible chance of being anything to him. But since his last interview with Lady Errington, the astute man of the world had been quick to read her true feelings, and had therefore given up all hope of winning her love. Besides, he had arranged with Laxton to go to Africa, and had it not been for the accident of Guy's illness would have started almost immediately for that mysterious continent, but since things had turned out otherwise, he resolved to do his duty by his cousin even against his desire of gratifying self. It was true he had done all in his power to conquer this dominant faculty of egotism, he had parted with Alizon for ever, he had saved Errington from the machinations of Mrs. Veilsturm but the great temptation was yet to come, and in a guise least anticipated by the tempted. Of course, he told Dr. Storge about his success in the delicate matter of Mrs. Veilsturm, at which success the physician expressed himself highly delighted, as he undoubtedly thought that the removal of this disturbing influence on Errington's life would have a beneficial result on his health. Doctors are not infallible, however, and the result of this attempt to quiet the patient's mind only succeeded in exciting it still more, which state of the case considerably dismayed both Storge and Gartney. Guy, being under the impression that his wife had cast him off for ever, had been touched by the interest displayed towards him by Mrs. Veilsturm, and clung to the idea of her disinterested affection as a drowning man clings to a straw. An old simile, certainly, but one that holds good in this case. He thought that his wife did not love him, that she had never loved him, and that Cleopatra was the only woman who had any tender feelings towards him in her heart. It was true that the world, a notoriously ungenerous critic, said that she was capricious, cruel, fickle as the wind--still, so cleverly had she feigned a love she did not feel, that Errington really believed he had inspired a genuine feeling in her hard heart.