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Medieval
Ethiopian Kingship,
Craft, and Diplomacy
with Latin Europe

Verena Krebs
Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy
with Latin Europe
 Verena Krebs

Medieval Ethiopian
Kingship, Craft, and
Diplomacy with Latin
Europe
Verena Krebs
Institute of History
Ruhr University Bochum
Bochum, Germany

ISBN 978-3-030-64933-3    ISBN 978-3-030-64934-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64934-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Detail from a manuscript made for aṣe Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl, ca. 1520, Tädbabä
Maryam Monastery, Ethiopia. Photograph by Diana Spencer, courtesy of the DEEDS
Project.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 To my parents, and to H.

Ich hab’ euch doch immer ein Boot versprochen.

Map 1 Late medieval Solomonic Ethiopia and its environs
Map 2 Ethiopian presence and diplomatic travel routes in Europe (1402–1535)
 Acknowledgements

I first encountered the sources that form the bedrock of this book as a
master’s student at the University of Konstanz, Germany, well over a
decade ago. Reflections on these materials have taken many forms over the
intervening years: a MA thesis, a PhD dissertation, an early and massive
book draft that looked at both Solomonic diplomacy and court collecting
practices. Each iteration, though ultimately discarded, re-shaped my views
on these texts, and their place in, and meaning for, the cultural history of
Ethiopia.
The long genesis process of this book has led me to accrue many debts.
My sincere thanks are owed to those institutions whose funding and sup-
port enabled me to conduct my writing and fieldwork research in the first
place: the Exzellenzcluster ‘Kulturelle Grundlagen von Integration’ at the
University of Konstanz, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, the Institute
of Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University and, finally, the Department
of History and Heritage Management at Mekelle University. The Martin
Buber Society of Fellows in Jerusalem and the Historical Institute at
Ruhr University Bochum graciously tolerated my continued research on a
project I was supposed to have long concluded.
The hypotheses laid out in this book have evolved through conversa-
tion with friends and colleagues in Europe, North America, Jerusalem and
Ethiopia. In particular, I wish to thank Dorothea Weltecke, Wolbert
Smidt, Alexandra Cuffel, Adam Knobler, Sahar Amer, Erin
MacLeod, Manfred Kropp, Rainer Voigt, Christof Rolker, Felix Girke,
Margit Mersch, Bar Kribus, Zara Pogossian, Yonatan Moss, Carlo Taviani,
Kate Lowe, Samantha Kelly, Wendy Belcher, Kristen Windmuller-Luna,

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Meseret Oldjira, Michael Gervers (who also kindly gave his permission for
the cover image of this book), Dorothea McEwan, Adam Simmons,
Solomon Gebreyes, Felege-Selam Yirga, Julien Loiseau, Martina Ambu,
Mitiku Gabrehiwot, Hagos Abrha, Semira Seid, Bahru Zewde, Shiferaw
Bekele and Lev Kapitaikin, who asked a very important question at a talk
I gave in Jerusalem in 2019. At the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and
Eritrean Studies in Hamburg, I especially wish to thank Alessandro Bausi,
Denis Nosnitsin and Sophia Dege-Müller for their expertise and advice,
and for reading parts of the manuscript. For their expertise and advice
regarding the Arabic sources, I similarly wish to thank Barbara Roggema,
Shahid Jamal and especially Julien Loiseau, whose gracious sharing of his
unpublished research on al-Tabrı̄zı̄ made my own investigation into the
matter possible in the first place.
This book also could not have been written in the way it was without
the translation help and invaluable philological expertise of Maria Bulakh,
Jonathan Brent and Kari North in Gǝʿǝz, Latin and Catalan, respectively.
Jan Brandejs was of superb help in creating the maps. I am moreover par-
ticularly grateful to Friederike Pfister, Daphna Oren-­Magidor, Solomon
Gebreyes, David Spielman, Jonathan Brent and Maria Bulakh, who all
read the manuscript in its entirety despite my looming deadlines, provid-
ing invaluable feedback and catching more than a few typos and translit-
eration mistakes. Thanks also go to Jona Ratering, Jil Löbbecke, Merve
Battal and Ayse Nur Özdemir, indefatigable checkers of proofs and end-
notes. My greatest debt is owed to Gabriel Stoukalov-­Pogodin, medieval-
ist, journalist, TV producer and childhood friend extraordinaire, who
wielded his unique skillset like a fine scalpel to conduct major editorial
surgery on the manuscript, refining, advancing and ensuring the cogency
of my arguments.
Finally, there are not enough words in the world to express my love and
gratitude to my parents, Otto and Heidrun, my sister Helena—and my
husband, Jan. I could never have gotten here without you, and you are
everything to me.
 Note to Reader

Transliterations from Ethiopian languages overwhelmingly follow those

established by the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, unless terms have entered
common English usage; transliterations from Arabic follow the imperfect
system of a German native-­speaker writing in English who learnt Arabic
both late in life and outside of the academy. A glossary provides brief
explanations on historical personnel and the most commonly used Gǝʿǝz
and Arabic terms.
Medieval Ethiopian kings could be known to their subjects by several
names, some of which were evocative composites (e.g. king Lǝbnä
Dǝngǝl’s name means ‘Incense of the Virgin’, but he was also known as
Dawit III and Wänag Sägäd). Each king is referred to by the name most
commonly employed in scholarship; moreover, to denote a ruler’s king-
ship, his name is preceded by the local honorific term of address of aṣe
(thus aṣe Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl instead of ‘king Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’) in this book. I
also employ the Gǝʿǝz terms nǝgus ́ (meaning ‘king’) and its plural nägäs ́t
(‘kings’) as a shorthand specifically denoting the Christian rulers of
Solomonic Ethiopia (vis-à-vis their counterparts in Europe or elsewhere)
throughout this study.
Personal names, particularly those of individuals involved in Ethiopian-
European diplomacy, have not been modernised or rendered into an
English equivalent unless specifically noted. Instead, they are given as they
appear in the primary source material (e.g. ‘Petrus’ instead of ‘Peter’,
‘Johanne Baptista’ instead of ‘Giovanni Battista’). The common English
form is used for names of Latin Christian popes, and for personages of
comparative historical fame that are of secondary importance (e.g. Pope

xi
xii Note to Reader

Sixtus IV and count Girolamo Riario). In bibliographic references,

Ethiopian names are given as usual, listing the personal name and the
name of the father and grandfather (when customarily used by the author)
with no reversal in bibliographic entries.
As has become commonplace in the field, all dates are identified as CE
(Common Era) with regard to the modern Western calendar; in a few
cases, AH for the Islamic calendar is used. The centuries under investiga-
tion here are familiar to Ethiopian Studies specialists as belonging to the
latter part of the so-called Early Solomonic Period (1270–1529) of
Ethiopian history. The applicability of the terms ‘medieval’ or ‘Middle
Ages’ to non-European regions has engaged many discussions within the
field of Medieval Studies in recent years. And yet, leading Ethiopian schol-
ars of the twentieth century (from Taddesse Tamrat and Sergew Hable
Selassie to Getatchew Haile) have—when writing in English about the
time period—long and freely employed both these terms. The use of ‘late
medieval’ and ‘late Middle Ages’ in this book is thus a nod to the great
Ethiopian historians in whose footsteps I walk. It is also a conscious choice
to highlight the deep history of entanglement between the North-East
African highlands and the extended Mediterranean, which is at the heart
of this study.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Historiography, Sources and the Spectre of Prester John   3
Structure   7

2 All the King’s Treasures 17

Relics, Garments and Craftsmen—Ethiopian Missions to Italy at
the Turn of the Fifteenth Century  18
Strangers in Ethiopia, ca. 1398/1399–1401  18
A Venetian Summer, 1402  20
King Dawit’s Treasures, 1402–1403  23
Fact and Fiction in Rome, 1403–1404  25
Roads, Merchants and ‘the Good Wine’: Venetians in Ethiopia in
the Early Fifteenth Century  29
Lost in Translation at the Council of Constance, 1416–1418  34
Chapter Conclusion  38

3 The Sons of Dawit 61

First Contacts with the Kingdom of Aragon  62
An Interfaith Embassy to Valencia, 1427–1428  62
Spending a Fortune to Request Aid from Ethiopia, May 1428  63
Fear and Intrigue in Cairo, Early 1429  65
Five Ethiopian Pilgrims Walk Into a War, Summer 1430  73
Swapping Allegiances from France to Ethiopia, 1432/1433  74
The Abbot, the nəguś and the Council of Florence, 1439–1444  77

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

Ethiopia, Rome and Aragon—And the Fall of Constantinople  83

Chapter Conclusion  90

4 The Rule of the Regents121

Rome, Ethiopia, Jerusalem, and Two Very Different Men from
Imola, 1478–1484 122
An Ethiopian Mission to Cairo and a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
Mid-1480–Spring 1481 123
An Ethiopian Mission to the Heart of Latin Christendom,
1481–1482 126
A Minuscule Franciscan Mission in Ethiopia, 1480–1484/85 133
The Lord and the Letter-Carrier 136
Ethiopian Performative Diplomacy and Latin Missionary Zeal
in the Early 1480s 139
Ethiopia and Portugal, 1487–1527 142
Early Portuguese Emissaries to Ethiopia 142
Ǝleni’s Mission to Portugal, 1508–1509 143
Ethiopian Delegates to Portugal (1509–1515) 146
The Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia and aṣe Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’s
Last Peacetime Mission (1520–1527) 149
Chapter Conclusion 153

5 King Solomon’s Heirs185

Technologists, Arms, and Alliances? Dismantling a Scholarship
Narrative 185
A Christian Ethiopian Empire? The Realm of the ‘Builder Kings’  189
Monasticism and Solomonic Rule 190
Royal Foundations Proclaiming a Christian Dominion 192
Ethiopian Churches of Italian Appearance? 194
Through a Glass, Darkly: Textual Evidence and Archaeological
Remains 196
Diplomatic Requests Re-examined 203
Builders, Carpenters, Stonemasons, Metalworkers and Painters 204
The Dazzling Splendour of the World: Religious Material
Culture 206
Foreign Craftsmanship, Royal Foundations, and Diplomacy 211
The Power of Distance and Solomonic Emulation 215
Chapter Afterword: The Builder Kings’ Realm in Turbulent
Times 220
 Contents  xv

6 Conclusion263

A Brief Glossary of Terms Relating to Ethiopian History267

Bibliography273

Index295
 Abbreviations

ACA Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona

ASV Archivio di Stato di Venezia
BAP Biblioteca Comunale Augusta di Perugia
BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
BMN Bibliothèque Municipale de Nancy
BNCF Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze
BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
BNM Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice
EAe Encylopaedia Aethiopica. Vols. 1–3, ed. Siegbert Uhlig; vol. 4, ed.
Siegbert Uhlig and Alessandro Bausi; vol. 5, ed. Alessandro Bausi and
Siegbert Uhlig. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014.
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
TTNA Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon
UH Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In early 1429, a Persian merchant called al-Tabrı ̄zı ̄ was condemned to

death by one of the four supreme justices of Mamlūk Egypt. The Egyptian
authorities carried out the sentence quickly and with great spectacle: as
February turned into March, al-Tabrı ̄zı ̄ was publicly beheaded under the
window of the al-Ṣāliḥiyya madrasa, the formal site for public execution in
late medieval Cairo. The Persian declared his innocence until his head was
struck from his neck. He also quoted passages from the Quran and pro-
claimed the Islamic profession of faith.
Officially, al-Tabrı ̄zı ̄ was accused of ‘importing weapons into an enemy
country’ and ‘playing with two religions’.1 From a Mamlūk standpoint, he
was certainly guilty of both: the merchant had previously been repri-
manded for his export of arms and horses from Muslim Egypt to Solomonic
Ethiopia, a Christian kingdom located in the highlands of the Horn of
Africa. Beyond his role as incidental quartermaster supplying a foreign
army to the south of Egypt, al-Tabrı ̄zı ̄ was also known to acquire ‘trea-
sures’ such as bejewelled crosses for aṣe Yǝsḥaq, the ruler of Christian
Ethiopia.
The evidence recovered with the Persian upon his arrest together with
some Ethiopian monks in 1429 indicates that the group had been sent out
to acquire the rare and beautiful things in life. While some weapons were
found among their possessions, they were of little interest to the Mamlūk
authorities. Primarily recovered were great amounts of ‘Frankish’

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
V. Krebs, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with
Latin Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64934-0_1
2 V. KREBS

clothing, richly embroidered in gold with Christian symbols, as well as two

golden church bells and a letter written ‘in the Ethiopian language’. In it,
the Ethiopian sovereign supposedly ordered al-Tabrı ̄zı ̄ to acquire items of
gold-smithery, crosses, bells and a holy Christian relic—one of the nails
with which Jesus had been crucified.2
Meanwhile, Spanish archival material indicates that the Persian mer-
chant and the Ethiopian monks had visited the kingdom of Aragon before
attempting to return to Ethiopia via Egypt. They had arrived in Valencia
in late 1427, spending several months in the city and asking the Aragonese
king, Alfonso V, to despatch artisans and craftsmen to the court of their
master, the nǝgus—thé Ethiopian king.
All this inter-faith contact and collaboration—with an African Christian
ruler approaching an Iberian court employing a Persian Muslim in the
company of Ethiopian ecclesiastics—provoked the suspicion of genera-
tions of Mamlūk Egyptian historians, who subsequently speculated that
the nǝgus ́ must have been calling for a crusade against the Islamic powers
of the Mediterranean.3 There was simply no way an Ethiopian king would
have sent out emissaries to travel halfway across the known world to
acquire ecclesiastical garments, liturgical objects and a relic as well as arti-
sans and craftsmen. Or was there?
In fact, diplomatic endeavours like the one that took such a fatal turn
for the Persian merchant al-Tabrı ̄zı ̄ seem to have been rather common at
the time. The fifteenth and early sixteenth century, the timeframe under
consideration in this book, coincides with an early golden age of Solomonic
Ethiopian sovereignty in the Horn of Africa. The origins of Christianity in
the region date back to the first half of the fourth century, when the
Aksumite king ʿEzana converted to the religion together with his court,
and Ethiopia became a bishopric of the Coptic Church.4 In 1270, the so-­
called Solomonic dynasty came to power in the central Ethiopian high-
lands. Throughout the fourteenth century, successive Solomonic
nägäs ́t—to use the plural of nǝgus ́as shorthand for these kings of Christian
Ethiopia—extended and consolidated their realm, seizing and submitting
new regions from non-Christian principalities under their suzerainty.5 At
the turn of the fifteenth century, Solomonic Ethiopia was the largest geo-
political entity in the late medieval Horn of Africa. The territory the
Christian nägäs ́t claimed as their own stretched nearly 700 miles in
length and several hundred miles in breadth. It formed a heterogeneous
realm that extended over most of the central highland plateau, from the
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

Eritrean coastal regions to the south of modern-day Addis Ababa (com-

pare Map 1).6
Between 1400 and the late 1520s, successive Ethiopian sovereigns are
recorded as dispatching at least a dozen diplomatic missions to various
princely and ecclesiastical courts in Latin Europe. The vast majority of
embassies were sent out within the first 50 years of contacts. In the fif-
teenth century alone, Solomonic envoys arrived at places as varied as
Venice, Rome, Valencia, Naples and Lisbon. Ethiopian pilgrims, some-
times cast into the role of inadvertent ambassadors, are concurrently
attested from Lake Constance in modern-day Germany to Santiago de
Compostela in the very west of the Iberian Peninsula.
Continuous and lasting contacts between distant medieval royal courts
are far from surprising. Often, objects rather than written sources bear
lasting witness to remote connections between realms. As art historian
Finbarr Flood once put it, ‘people and things have been mixed up for a
very long time, rarely conforming to the boundaries imposed on them by
modern anthropologists and historians.’7 In this specific case, however,
the people and things mixing up between the Christian Horn of Africa and
the Latin West traversed thousands of miles. They needed to cross moun-
tain ranges, deserts and two large bodies of water, as well as territories
adhering to different faiths. Even at the best of times, a single journey was
bound to take at least half a year. And yet, nearly all rulers and regents of
the fifteenth and early sixteenth century sent out envoys in some way or
other—in the very early 1400s, up to three embassies were dispatched
from the North-East African highland court within just five years.
Examining late medieval Solomonic Ethiopian missions to the Latin West,
this book above all seeks to answer a simple question: why did generations
of nägäs ́t initiate diplomatic contacts with different princely and ecclesias-
tical courts in Europe in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century?

Historiography, Sources and the Spectre

of Prester John

Modern historians and philologists working on the history and literature

of Europe and Ethiopia alike have studied these diplomatic encounters for
more than a century.8 Dating back to the very early 1900s, researchers
working on materials examined in this book have noted an Ethiopian
interest in craftsmen, and occasionally relics.9 The mid-twentieth-century
4 V. KREBS

Italian historian Renato Lefèvre concerned himself with the topic of

Ethiopian-European exchanges throughout his long career, unearthing
more archival material than any other scholar.10 In a major 1945 article, he
suggested that the nägäs ́t first approached medieval Italy out of a need for
its artistically and technologically superior workforce, ostensibly caused by
a lack of skilled indigenous African labour.11 Two decades later, he opined
somewhat less bluntly that Solomonic rulers dispatched their missions out
of a desire to obtain ‘masters of art and industry’ to raise the civil and
technical level of the Ethiopian kingdom, driven by a need to enhance its
military efficiency.12
Lefèvre’s views were undoubtedly steeped in the colonialist political
climate of his time, not unusual amongst Italian scholars writing in the
1930s and 1940s and thus shortly before, during, and after the fascist
Italian occupation of the Horn of Africa.13 His particular conclusions on
Ethiopia’s supposedly desperate cry for military, political and artistic aid
were, however, also influenced by the way the material has been studied.
While Ethiopia was often perceived as exceptional within pre-colonial
African historiography, its history has often been examined from the per-
spective of European imagination and exploration, which was often itself
steeped in a crusading spirit in the later Middle Ages.14 Historical men-
tions of Prester John and his realm, a formidable yet wholly fictitious
Christian ruler of extraordinary military power who enjoyed particular
popularity in late medieval Europe, have long been examined alongside
sources on Solomonic Ethiopia.15 Until now, the spectre of Prester John—
despite its origin as a wholly exogenous, proto-orientalist European fan-
tasy—persists in scholarly writing on the actual geopolitical entity of
pre-modern Solomonic Ethiopia.16 Finally, the rather martial interests of
an ostensible early-fourteenth-century ‘Ethiopian’ embassy—whose histo-
ricity and connection to the realm of the nägäs ́t has been under ques-
tion—have also been projected onto later Solomonic missions. Incidentally,
Latin Christian sources narrate this mission as offering a military alliance
to a ‘king of the Spains’.17 Over the course of the century, research has
thus often read late medieval Ethiopia and its connections to the larger
world as cast in a very particular light: we find a largely established scholar-
ship view where the nägäs ́t are understood as primarily looking for crafts-
men to ‘develop’ the Christian highland realm and especially its military,
and as hoping to acquire arms and even guns from Europe. Sometimes,
these ostensible interests were tied to another rather martial desire—the
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

nägäs ́t were also narrated as primarily looking for military alliances with
various courts in Latin Europe.18
It is the core idea of this book to argue that the available source mate-
rial on Solomonic diplomatic outreach to the late medieval Latin West tells
quite a different story: while some first-hand expressions of diplomatic
interests written by Ethiopian rulers from the early sixteenth century do
indeed contain—among many other things—a tangible interest in military
matters, alliances and arms, these are utterly absent in sources dating prior
to the early 1500s.19 Yet, Solomonic embassies to Europe date back to the
very early 1400s. What drove the nägäs ́t to send their missions through-
out the fifteenth century? Research has thus far failed to offer up a compel-
ling explanation for the first 100 years of persistent Solomonic diplomatic
outreach.
No first-hand letters written by Ethiopian rulers have come down to us
for this lengthy, early phase of contacts. However, a multitude of other
texts from Ethiopia, Egypt and Latin Europe have survived. These texts
contain a wealth of circumstantial evidence and provide a view on the
desires and interests of these African Christian rulers. Most of our sources
have been preserved in European archives, ranging from administrative
notes and copies of official letters to treasury records, city annals and
chronicles, itineraries, diary entries, personal letter collections and even
cartouche legends on maps. Many are written in the languages of the
Latin West: medieval Latin, of course, but also Italian, Catalan, German,
French and Portuguese, with the occasional indistinct local mix of a few of
the above thrown in for good measure. Ethiopian texts written in Gǝʿǝz,
the ancient literary and liturgical language of the country, provide an addi-
tional perspective. They contain important nuggets of historical informa-
tion, as do Arabic records from Mamlūk Egypt, Ethiopia’s northern
neighbour.
Combining all these sources—some of which have been known for
more than a century, others having come to light more recently—makes
visible several golden threads running through each and every late medi-
eval Solomonic embassy to Latin Europe: as we will see, not a single source
relating to the first 100 years of Ethiopian diplomacy portrays a clear
Solomonic interest in obtaining military craftsmen-technologists or alli-
ances, arms or guns from the Latin West. Instead, we find an immense
desire to acquire foreign religious material culture, especially relics, eccle-
siastical fabrics and liturgical objects, but also artisans and craftsmen skilled
Another random document with
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in a deprivation of the consideration with which the world regarded her. A
woman separated from her husband is always equivocally placed; even
when the husband is notorious as a bad character, as a man of unendurable
temper, or bitten with some disgraceful vice, society always looks obliquely
at the woman separated from him; and when she has no such glaring
excuse, her position is more than equivocal. "Respectable" women will not
receive her; or do so with a certain nuance of reluctance. Men gossip about
her, and regard her as a fair mark for their gallantries.

Mrs. Vyner knew all this thoroughly; she had refused to know women in
that condition; at Mrs. Langley Turner's, where she had more than once
encountered these black sheep, she had turned aside her head, and by a
thousand little impertinent airs made them feel the difference between her
purity and their disgrace. A separation, therefore, was not a thing to be
lightly thought of; yet the idea of obeying Vyner, of accepting his
conditions, made her cheek burn with indignation.

Absorbed in thought she sat, weighing, as in a delicate balance, the

conflicting considerations which arose within her, and ever and anon asking
herself,—"What has become of Maxwell?"

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ALTERNATIVE.

Maxwell had just recovered from the effect of that broken bloodvessel
which terminated the paroxysm of passion Mrs. Vyner's language and
conduct had thrown him into.

At the very moment when she was asking herself, "What has become of
Maxwell?" he concluded his will, arranged all his papers, burnt many
letters, and, going to a drawer, took from them a pair of pocket pistols with
double barrels.

He was very pale, and his veins seemed injected with bile in lieu of
blood; but he was excessively calm.

In one so violent, in one whose anger was something more like madness
than any normal condition of the human mind, who from childhood
upwards had been unrestrained in the indulgence of his passion, this
calmness was appalling.

He loaded the four barrels with extreme precision, having previously

cleared the touchholes, and not only affixed the caps with care, but also
took the precaution of putting some extra caps in his waistcoat pocket in
case of accidents.

His hand did not tremble once; on his brow there was no scowl; on his
colourless lips no grim smile; but calm, as if he were about the most
indifferent act of his life, and breathing regularly as if no unusual thought
was in his mind, he finished the priming of those deadly instruments, and
placed them in his pocket.

Once more did he read over his will; and then having set everything in
order, rang the bell.

"Fetch a cab," he said quietly to the servant who entered.

"Are you going out, sir?" asked the astonished servant.

"Don't you see I am?"

"Yes, sir,—only you are but just out of bed...."

"I am quite well enough."

There was no reply possible. The cab was brought. He stepped into it,
and drove to Mrs. Vyner's.
 Although she was thinking of him at the very moment when he was
announced, she started at the sound of his name. His appearance startled her
still more. She saw that he could only just have risen from a bed of
sickness, and that sickness she knew had been caused by the vehemence of
his love for her.

Affectionate as was her greeting, it brought no smile upon his lips, no

light into his glazed eyes.

"The hypocrite!" was his mental exclamation.

"Oh! Maxwell, how I have longed to see you," she said "you left me in
anger, and I confess I did not behave well to you; but why have you not
been here before? did you not know that I was but too anxious to make it up
with you?"

"How should I know that?" he quietly asked.

"How! did you not know my love for you?"

"I did not," he said, perfectly unmoved.

"You did not? Oh you ungrateful creature! Is that the return I am to meet
with? Is it to say such things that you are here?"

A slight smile played in his eyes for a moment, but his lips were
motionless.

"Come," she said, "you have been angry with me—I have been wrong—
let us forget and forgive."

He did not touch her proffered hand, but said,—

"If for once in your life you can be frank, be so now."

"I will. What am I to say?"

Carelessly putting both hands into his coat pockets, and grasping the
pistols, he rose, stretched out his coat tails, and stood before her in an
attitude usual with him, and characteristic of Englishmen generally, when
standing with their backs to the fire.

"You promise to be frank?" he said.

"I do."

"Then tell me whether Lord * * * * * was here yesterday."

"He was."

"Will he be here to-morrow?"

"Most likely."

"Then you have not given him his congé?"

"Not I."

Maxwell paused and looked at her keenly, his right hand grasping
firmly the pistol in his pocket.

"Then may I ask the reason of your very civil reception of me to-day?"

"The reason! Civil!"

"Yes, the reason, the motive: you must have one."

"Is not my love...."

"You promised to be frank," he said, menacingly.

"I did—I am so."

"Then let us have no subterfuge of language—speak plainly—it will be

better for you."

"Maxwell, if you are come here to irritate me with your jealousy, and
your absurd doubts, you have chosen a bad time. I am not well. I am not
happy. I do not wish to quarrel with you—do not force me to it."

"Beware!" he said, in deep solemn tones.

"Beware you! George, do not provoke me—pray do not. Sit down and
talk reasonably. What is it you want to ask me?"

"I repeat: the motive for your civility to me?"

"And I repeat: my love."

"Your love!"

"There again! Why will you torment me with this absurd doubt? Why
should you doubt me? Have I any interest in deceiving you? You are not my
husband.—It is very strange that when I do not scruple to avow my love,
you should scruple to believe me."

"My scruples arise from my knowledge of you: you are a coquette."

"I know it; but not to you."

"Solemnly—do you love me?"

"Solemnly—I do!"

He paused again, as unprepared for this dissimulation. She withstood

his gaze without flinching.

An idea suddenly occurred to him.

"Mary, after what I have seen, doubts are justifiable. Are you prepared
to give me a proof?"

"Yes, any; name it."

"Will you go with me to France?"

"Run away with you?"

 "You refuse!" he said, half drawing a pistol from his pocket.

She was bewildered. The suddenness of the proposition, and its

tremendous importance staggered her.

A deep gloom concentrated on his face; the crisis had arrived, and he
only awaited a word from her to blow her brains out.

With the indescribable rapidity of thought, her mind embraced the

whole consequences of his offer—weighed the chances—exposed the peril
of her situation with her husband, and permitted her to calculate whether,
since separation seemed inevitable, there would not be an advantage in
accepting Maxwell's offer. "He loves me," she said; "loves me as no one
ever loved before. With him I shall be happy."

"I await your decision," he said.

"George, I am yours!"

She flung herself upon his neck. He was so astonished at her resolution,
that at first he could not believe it, and his hands still grasped the pistols;
but by degrees her embrace convinced him, and clasping her in his arms, he
exclaimed,—

"Your love has saved you! You shall be a happy woman—I will be your
slave!"

CHAPTER XV.

THOSE LEFT TO WEEP.

The discovery of Mrs. Vyner's flight was nearly coincident with the
announcement of Cecil's suicide. Poor Vyner was like a madman. He
reproached himself for having spoken so harshly to his wife, for having
driven her to this desperate act, and thus causing her ruin. Had he been
more patient, more tolerant! She was so young, so giddy, so impulsive, he
ought to have had more consideration for her!

It was quite clear to Vyner's mind that he had behaved very brutally, and
that his wife was an injured innocent.

In the midst of this grief, there came the horrible intelligence of Cecil's
end. There again Vyner reproached himself. Why did he allow Blanche to
marry that unhappy young man? On second thoughts, "he had never
allowed it"; but yet it was he who encouraged Cecil—who invited him to
his seat—who pressed him to stay!

In vain did Captain Heath remonstrate with him on this point; Vyner
was at that moment in a remorseful, self-reproachful spirit, which no
arguments could alter. He left everything to Captain Heath's management,
with the helplessness of weak men, and sat desolate in his study, wringing
his hands, taking ounces of snuff, and overwhelming himself with
unnecessary reproaches.

Blanche, in a brain fever, was removed to her father's, where she was
watched by the miserable old man, as if he had been the cause of her
sorrow. Violet was sent for from her uncle's, and established herself once
more in the house. Now her step-mother was gone, she could devote herself
to her father.

Blanche's return to consciousness was unhappily also a return to that

fierce sorrow which nothing but time could assuage. She was only induced
to live by the reflection that her child needed her care. But what a prospect
was it for her! How could she ever smile again! How could she ever cease
to weep for her kind, affectionate, erring, but beloved Cecil!

It is the intensity of all passion which makes us think it must be eternal;

and it is this very intensity which makes it so short-lived. In a few months
Blanche occasionally smiled; her grief began to take less the shape of a
thing present, and more that of a thing past; it was less of a sensation, and
more of a reverie.
 At first the image of her husband was a ghastly image of dishonour and
early wreck; his face wore the stern keen look of suspicion which had
agitated her when last she saw him alive; or else it wore the placidity of the
corpse which she had last beheld. Behind that ghastly image stood the
background of their happy early days of marriage, so shortlived, yet so
exquisite!

In time the ghastliness faded away, and round the image of her husband,
there was a sort of halo—the background gradually invaded the foreground,
till at last the picture had no more melancholy in it than there is in some
sweet sunset over a quiet sea. The tears she shed were no longer bitter: they
were the sweet and pensive tears shed by that melancholy which finds
pleasure in its own indulgence.

Grief had lost its pang. Her mind, familiarized with her loss, no longer
dwelt upon the painful, but on the beautiful side of the past. Her child was
there to keep alive the affectionate remembrance of its father, without
suggesting the idea of the moody, irritable, ungenerous husband, which
Cecil had at the last become.

Like a child crying itself to sleep—passing from sorrow into quiet

breathing—her grief had passed into pensiveness. Cecil's image was as a
star smiling down upon her from heaven: round it were clustered quiet,
happy thoughts, not the less happy because shadowed with a seriousness
which had been grief.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE VOICE OF PASSION.

Vyner soon recovered from the double shock he had sustained, and was
now quite happy again with his two girls, and his excellent friend Heath, as
his constant companions; while Julius and Rose were seldom two days
absent from them.

For the sake of Blanche they now returned to Wytton Hall, and there her
health was slowly but steadily restored.

Captain Heath was her companion in almost every walk and drive;
reading to her the books she wished; daily becoming a greater favourite
with little Rose Blanche, who would leave even her nurse to come to him;
and daily feeling serener, as his love grew not deeper, but less unquiet: less,
as he imagined, like a lover's love, and more like that of an elder brother.

Blanche was happier with him than with any one else; not that she loved
him, not even that she divined his love; since Cecil's death, his manner had
been even less demonstrative than it had ever been before, and it would
have been impossible for the keenest observer to have imagined there was
anything like love in his attentions.

What quiet blissful months those were which they then passed: Vyner
once more absorbed in his Horace; Blanche daily growing stronger, and less
melancholy; Heath living as one in a dream; Violet hearing, with a woman's
pride in him she loves, of Marmaduke's immense success in parliament,
where he was already looked up to as the future Chatham or Burke.

Every time Violet saw Marmaduke's name in the papers, her heart
fluttered against the bars of its prison, and she groaned at the idea of being
separated from him. Indeed her letters to Rose were so full of Marmaduke,
that Rose planned with Julius a little scheme to bring the two unexpectedly
together, as soon as Violet returned to town.

"I am sure Violet loves him," said Rose; "I don't at all understand what
has occurred to separate them. Violet is silent on the point, and is uneasy if I
allude to it. But don't you agree with me, Julius, that she must love him?"

"I think it very probable."

"Probable! Why not certain?"

 "Because, you know, I am apt to be suspicious on that subject."

"I know you are," she said, laughing and shaking her locks at him, "and
a pretty judge you are of a woman's heart!"

Julius allowed himself to be persuaded that Violet really did love

Marmaduke, and accordingly some weeks afterwards, when the Vyners had
returned, Julius arranged a pic-nic in which Marmaduke was to join,
without Violet's knowledge. Fearful lest she should refuse to accompany
them if she saw him before starting, it was agreed that Marmaduke should
meet them at Richmond.

Imagine with what feverish impatience he awaited them, and with what
a sinking, anxious heart he appeared amongst them. Violet blushed, and
looked at Rose; the laughter in her eyes plainly betrayed her share in the
plot, in defiance of the affected gravity of her face. He shook hands with
such of the company as he knew personally, was introduced to the others,
and then quietly seated himself beside Violet, in a manner so free from
either embarrassment or gallantry, that it put her quite at her ease. She had
determined, from the first, to frustrate Rose's kindly-intentioned scheme;
and she felt that she had strength enough to do so. But his manner at once
convinced her that, however he might have been brought there, it was with
no intention of taking any advantage of their meeting to open forbidden
subjects.

Marmaduke was in high spirits, and talked quite brilliantly. Violet was
silent; but from time to time, as he turned to address a remark to her, he saw
her look of admiration, and that inspired him.

I need not describe the pic-nic, for time presses, and pic-nics are all very
much alike. Enough if we know that the day was spent merrily and noisily,
and that dinner was noisier and merrier than all: the champagne drank,
amounting to something incredible.

Evening was drawing in. The last rays of a magnificent sunset were
fading in the western sky, and the cool breeze springing up warned the
company that it was time to prepare for their return.
 The boisterous gaiety of the afternoon and dinner had ceased. Every one
knows the effect of an exhilarating feast, followed by a listless exhausted
hour or two; when the excitement produced by wine and laughter has
passed away, a lassitude succeeds, which in poetical minds induces a tender
melancholy, in prosaic minds a desire for stimulus or sleep.

As the day went down, all the guests were exhausted, except
Marmaduke and Violet, who, while the others were gradually becoming
duller and duller, had insensibly wandered away, engrossed in the most
enchanting conversation.

"Did I not tell you?" whispered Rose, as she pointed out to Julius the
retreating figures of her sister and Marmaduke.

Away the lovers wandered, and although their hearts were full of love,
although their eyes were speaking it as eloquently as love can speak, not a
syllable crossed their lips which could be referred to it. A vague yearning—
a dim, melancholy, o'ermastering feeling held its empire over their souls.
The witching twilight, closing in so strange a day, seemed irresistibly to
guide their thoughts into that one channel which they had hitherto so
dexterously avoided. Her hand was on his arm—he pressed it tenderly, yet
gently—so gently!—to his side. He gazed into her large lustrous eyes, and
intoxicated by their beauty and tenderness, he began to speak.

"It is getting late. We must return. We must separate. Oh! Violet, before
we separate, tell me that it is not for ever——"

"Marmaduke!" she stammered out, alarmed.

"Dearest, dearest Violet, we shall meet again—you will let me see you
—will you not?"

She was silent, struggling.

They walked on a few paces; then he again said,—

"You will not banish me entirely—you will from time to time——"

 "No, Marmaduke," she said, solemnly; "no, it will not be right. You
need not look so pained—I—have I nothing to overcome when I forego the
delight of seeing you? But it must not be. You know that it cannot be."

"I know nothing of the kind!" he impetuously exclaimed; "I only know
that you do not love me!"

She looked reproachfully at him; but his head was turned away.

"Cold, cold as marble," he muttered as they walked on.

She did not answer him. Lovers are always unreasonable and unjust. He
was furious at her "coldness;" she was hurt at his misunderstanding her. She
could have implored him to be more generous; but he gave her no
encouragement—he spoke no word—kept his look averted. Thus neither
tried to explain away the other's misconception; neither smoothed the
other's ruffled anger. In silence they walked on, environed by their pride.
The longer they kept silent, the bitterer grew their feelings;—the more he
internally reprobated her for coldness, the more she was hurt at his refusal
to acknowledge the justness of her resolution, after all that had passed
between them by letter.

In this painful state of feeling, they joined their companions just as the
boats were got ready.

Rose looked inquiringly at Violet; but Violet averted her head. Julius
was troubled to perceive the evident anger of Marmaduke.

The boats pushed off. The evening was exquisite, and Rose murmured
to Julius the words of their favourite Leopardi:—

Dolce e chiara è la notte, e senza vento,

E queta sovra i tetti e in mezzo agli orti
Posa la luna, e di lontan rivela
Serena ogni montagna.
 Wearied by the excitement of the day, they were almost all plunged in
reveries from which they made no effort to escape. The regular dip of the
oars in the water, and the falling drops shaken from them, had a musical
cadence, which fell deliciously on the ear. It was a dreamy scene. The moon
rose, and shed her gentle light upon them, as they moved along, in almost
unbroken silence, upon the silver stream. The last twitter of the birds had
ceased; the regular and soothing sounds of the oars alone kept them in a sort
of half consciousness of being awake.

Marmaduke and Violet were suffering tortures. She occasionally stole a

glance at him, and with redoubled pain read upon his haughty face the
expression of anger and doubt which so much distressed her. The large tears
rolled over her face. She leaned over the boat side to hide them, and as she
saw the river hurrying on beneath her, she thought of the unhappy Cecil,
and of his untimely end. Over his dishonoured corpse had this cold river
flowed, as gently as now it flowed beneath her... From Cecil her thoughts
wandered to Wytton Hall, and her early inclination for him—to her scene in
the field with the bull—to her first meeting with Marmaduke; and then she
thought no more of Cecil.

Thus they were rowed through the silent evening. On reaching town, the
party dispersed.

Marmaduke and Violet separated with cold politeness, and each went
home to spend a miserable night.

For some days did Marmaduke brood over her refusal, and as he
reflected on the strength of her character, and the slight probability that she
would ever yield—her very frankness told him that—he took a sudden and
very loverlike resolution that he would quit England, and return to Brazil.

Preparations for his departure were not delayed an instant, and with his
usual impetuosity he had completed every arrangement before another
would have fairly commenced.

Leave-taking began. He wrote to Vyner announcing his intention, and

saying that he proposed doing himself the pleasure of bidding them adieu.
He had the faint hope, which was very faint, that Violet might be present,
and that he might see her for the last time. Lovers attach a very particular
importance to a last farewell, and angry as Marmaduke was with Violet, the
idea of quitting England for ever, without once more seeing her, was
extremely painful to him.

It was a dull, drizzly day, enough to depress the most elastic of

temperaments. Violet was in her father's study, looking out upon the mist of
rain and cloud, debating with herself whether she should be present during
Marmaduke's visit or not. After what had passed, she tried to persuade
herself that it was fortunate he was going to quit England, fearing that her
resolution would never hold out against his renewed entreaties; but it was in
vain she sophisticated with herself, her heart told her that she was wretched,
intensely wretched at his departure.

Her father's voice roused her from this reverie, and she passed into the
drawing-room, where a few minutes afterwards the servant entered, and
announced "Mr. Ashley."

A stream of fire seemed suddenly to pour along her veins; but by the
time he had shaken hands with Vyner and Blanche, and had turned to her,
she was comparatively calm. His face was very sallow, and there was a
nervous quivering of his delicate nostrils, which indicated the emotion
within, but which was unobserved by her, as her eyes were averted.

The conversation was uneasy and common-place. Marmaduke's manner

was calm and composed, but his voice was low. Violet sat with her eyes
upon the carpet, deadly pale, and with colourless lips. Blanche, who did not
quite understand the relation between them, but who knew that Violet loved
him, was anxious on her account. Vyner alone was glib and easy. He talked
of parliament, and remarked, that the best thing he knew of it was, that the
members always quoted Horace.

As the interview proceeded, Marmaduke's grave, cold manner became

slightly tinged with irony and bitterness; and when Vyner said to him,
"Apropos, what—if the question be permissible—what induces you to leave
us? are you to be away long?"

He replied, with a marked emphasis, "Very long."

 "Is Brazil, then, so very attractive?"

"England ceases to be attractive. I want breathing space. There I can, as

Tennyson sings,—

'Burst all the links of habit—there to wander far away,

On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day.'"

Blanche, mildly interposing, said,—

"But what does he also sing, and in the same poem?

'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"

Violet's eyes were fixed upon the ground.

"And, after all—poetry aside—what are you going to do with yourself

in that hot climate?"

"To marry, perhaps," he said, carelessly, and with a forced laugh.

Violet shook all over; but she did not raise her eyes.

"An heiress?" asked Vyner.

"No,—to continue Tennyson,—

'I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.'"

There was singular bitterness, as he added,—

"In those climates, the passions are not cramped by the swaddling
clothes of civilisation; their franker natures better suit my own
impulsiveness; when they love they love—they do not stultify their hearts
with intricate sophisms."

Violet now raised her large eyes, and, with mournful steadiness,
reproached him by a look, for the words he had just uttered. He met her
look with one as steady, but flashing with scorn.

"Well, for my part," said Vyner, tapping his snuff-box, "Brazil would
have little attraction for me, especially if the women are violent. I can't bear
violent women."

Marmaduke had expected some remark from Violet in answer to his

speech; but that one look was her only answer, and she was now as intently
examining the carpet as before. He noticed her paleness, and the
concentrated calmness of her manner, and it irritated him the more.

Blanche, with true feminine sagacity, saw it was desirable, in every

case, that Violet should have an opportunity of speaking with him alone, so
walked out of the room, and in a few minutes sent the servant with a
message to Vyner that he was wanted for an instant down stairs.

The lovers were now alone, and horribly embarrassed. They wanted to
break the uneasy silence, but neither of them could utter a word.

At last Violet, feeling that it was imperative on her to say something,

murmured, without looking at him,—

"And when do you start?"

"On Monday."

Another pause ensued; perhaps worse this time than before, because of
the unsuccessful attempt.

"I wonder whether it still rains?" he said, after a few moments' silence,
and walked to the window to look out.

Left thus sitting by herself—an emblem of the far more terrible

desertion which was to follow—Violet looked in upon her desolate heart,
and felt appalled at the prospect. The imperious cry of passion sounded
within her, and would not be gagged: the pent-up tide burst away the
barriers, and rushed precipitately onwards, carrying before it all scruples
like straws upon a stream.

"Marmaduke!" she exclaimed.

He turned from the window; she had half-risen from her seat; he walked
up to her.

She flung herself into his arms.

"Is this true, Violet? Speak—are you mine—mine?"

She pressed him closer to her. It is only men who find words in such
moments; and Marmaduke was as eloquent as love and rapture could make
him.

When she did speak, it was in a low fluttering tone, her pale face
suffused with blushes, as she told him, that to live apart from him was
impossible;—either he must stay, or take her with him.

Meanwhile, Vyner had been prettily rated by Blanche for his dulness in
not perceiving that the lovers wanted to be alone.

"But are you certain, Blanche, that they are lovers? For my part, I wish
it were so; but although Violet certainly has a regard for him, I have reason
to believe, that he has none for her."

Blanche sighed and said,—

"Then let us go back, for in that case, they will only be uncomfortable
together."

* * * * * *

N.B.—The journey to Brazil was indefinitely postponed.

 EPILOGUE.

1845.
"Je l'aurais supprimée si j'écrivais un roman; je sais que l'héroine ne doit avoir qu'un
goùt; qu'il doit être pour quelqu'un de parfait et ne jamais finir; mais le vrai est comme il
peut, et n'a de mérite que d'être ce qu'il est."

MADAME DE STAAL DE LAUNAY.

The moon was serenely shining one soft July night, exactly ten years
from the date of the prologue to this long drama, when a young woman
crept stealthily from the door of an old and picturesque-looking house, at
the extremity of the town of Angoulême, and with many agitated glances
thrown back, as one who feared pursuit, ran, rather than walked, on to the
high road.

The moonbeams falling on that pale, wan, terror-stricken face, revealed

the scarcely recognisable features of the gay, daring, fascinating girl, whom
ten years before we saw upon the sands, behind Mrs. Henley's house,
parting, in such hysterical grief, from the lover whom she then thought
never could be absent from her heart, and whom a few months afterwards
she jilted for twelve thousand a year. Yes, that pale, wan woman was Mrs.
Meredith Vyner; and she fled from the man for whom she had sacrificed her
name!

Her face was a pathetic commentary upon her life. No longer were those
tiger eyes lighted up with the fire of daring triumph, no longer were those
thin lips curled with a smiling cruel coquetry, no longer drooped those
golden ringlets with a fairy grace. The eyes were dull with grief; the lips
were drawn down with constant fretfulness; the whole face sharpened with
constant fear and eagerness. Her beauty had vanished—her health was
broken—her gaiety was gone. Crushed in spirit, she was a houseless
fugitive, escaping from the most hateful of tyrants.

Retribution, swift and terrible, had fallen upon her head. From the
moment when, in obedience to that wild impulse, she had fled from her
husband with her saturnine lover, her life had been one protracted torture.
Better, oh! better far, would it have been for her to have refused him, and to
have died by his hand, than to have followed him to such misery as she had
endured!

It would take me long to recount in detail the sad experience of the last
two years. She found herself linked to a man, whose diabolical temper
made her shudder when he frowned, and whose mad, unreasonable, minute
jealousy kept her in constant terror. She dared not look at another man. She
was never allowed to quit his sight for an instant. If she sighed, it made him
angry; if she wept, it drew down reproaches upon her, and insinuations that
she repented of the step she had taken, and wished to leave him. A day's
peace or happiness with such a man was impossible. He had none of the
amiable qualities which might have made her forget her guilty position.
Dark, passionate, suspicious, ungenerous, and exacting, he was always
brooding over the difference between the claims he made upon her
admiration and love, and the mode in which she responded to those claims.
His tyrannous vanity, could only have been propitiated by the most abject
and exorbitant adulation—adulation in word, look, and act. She had
sacrificed herself, but that was only one act, and he demanded a continued
sacrifice. No woman had ever loved him before, yet nothing less than
idolatry, or the simulation of it, would content him. He could not understand
how she should have any other thought than that of ministering to his
exacting vanity.

Now, of all women, Mrs. Vyner was the last to be capable of such a
passion; and certainly, under such circumstances, no woman could have
given way to the passion, had she felt it. In constant terror and perpetual
remorse, what time had she for the subtleties of love? She dreaded and
despised him. She saw that her fate was inextricably inwoven with his; and
—what a humiliation!—she saw that he did not love her!
 No, Maxwell did not love her. She had not been with him a month
before he became aware of the fact himself. It is a remark I have often
made, that men thwarted in their desires confound their own wilfulness with
depth of passion. With fierce energy, they will move heaven and earth to
gain what, when gained, they disregard. This is usually considered as a
proof of the strength of their love; it only shows the strength of their self-
love.

It was Maxwell's irritated vanity which made him so persisting in his

pursuit of Mrs. Vyner. It was his wounded vanity which made him capable
of murdering her; not his love: for love, even when wounded, is still a
generous feeling;—it is sympathy, and admits no hate.

What, then, was Maxwell's object in living with Mrs. Vyner after the
discovery that he did not really love her? Why did he not quit her, or at least
allow her to quit him?

His vanity! precisely that: the same exacting vanity which prompted all
his former actions, prompted this. He felt that she did not idolize him; he
knew she would be glad to quit him;—and there was torture in the thought.
Had she really loved him with passionate self-oblivion, he would have
deserted her. As it was, the same motive which had roused his desire for her
possession, which had made him force her to sacrifice everything for his
sake, was as active now as then. If she left him, he was still, except for the
one act of her elopement, as far from his goal as before.

It may seem strange that, not loving her, he should prize so highly the
demonstrations of affection from her; but those who have probed the dark
and intricate windings of the heart, know the persistency of an unsatisfied
desire, and, above all, know the tyrannous nature of vanity. To this must be
added the peculiar condition of Maxwell: the condition of a man intensely
vain, who had never before been loved, and who had, as it were, staked his
existence on subduing this one woman's heart.

What a life was theirs! A life of ceaseless suspicion, and of ceaseless

dread—of bitter exasperation, and of keen remorse—of unsatisfied
demands, and of baffled hope.