Sanguine as Victor Carrington had been, confidently as he had calculated upon the fascination which Paulina had exerted over Douglas Dale, he was not prepared for the news contained in Miss Brewer’s promised letter, which reached him punctually, a few hours after Paulina had become the affianced wife of Douglas Dale. This was indeed success beyond his hopes. He had not expected this result for some days, at the very earliest, and the surprise and pleasure with which he learned it were almost equal. Carrington did not believe in good; he absolutely distrusted and despised human nature, and he never dreamed of imputing Madame Durski’s conduct to anything but coquetry and fickleness. “She’s on with the new love, beyond a doubt,” said he to himself, as he read Miss Brewer’s letter; “whether she’s off with the old is quite another question, and rests with him rather than with her, I fancy.”

Victor Carrington’s first move was to present himself before Madame Durski on the following day, at the hour at which she habitually received visitors. He took up the confidential conversation which they had had on the last occasion of their meeting, as if it had not been dropped in the interval, and came at once to the subject of Douglas Dale. This plan answered admirably; Paulina was naturally full of the subject, and the ice of formalism had been sufficiently broken between her and Victor Carrington, to enable her to refer to the interview which had taken place between herself and Douglas Dale without any impropriety. When she had done so, Carrington began to play his part. He assured Paulina of his warm interest in her, of the influence which he possessed over Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and the fears which he entertained of some treacherous proceeding on Reginald’s part which might place her in a most unpleasant position.

“Reginald has no real love for you,” said Carrington; “he would not hesitate to sacrifice you to the meanest of his interests, but his vanity and his temper are such that it is impossible to calculate upon what sort of folly he may be guilty.”

Paulina Durski was a thorough woman; and, therefore, having utterly discarded Reginald from her heart, having learned to substitute utter contempt for love, she was not averse to receiving any information, to learning any opinion, which tended to justify her change of feeling.

“What harm can he do me with Douglas?” asked Paulina, in alarm.

“Who can tell that, Madame Durski?” replied Carrington. “But this is not to the purpose. I don’t pretend to be wholly disinterested in this matter. I tell you plainly I am not so; it is very important to me that Sir Reginald should marry a woman of fortune, and should not marry you.”

“He never had any intention of marrying me,” said Paulina, hastily and bitterly.

“No, I don’t believe he had; but he would have liked very well to have compromised you in the eyes of society, so that no other man would have married you, to have bragged of relations existing between you which never did exist, and to have effectually ruined your fortunes in any other direction than the gaming-table. Now this I am determined he shall not do, and as I have more power over him than any one else, it lies with me to prevent it. What that power springs from, or how I have hitherto exercised it, you need not inquire, Madame Durski; I only wish you to believe that I exercise it in this instance for your good, for your protection.”

Paulina murmured some vague words of acknowledgment. He continued —

“If Reginald Eversleigh knows I am here, constantly cognizant of the state of affairs, and prepared to act for your advantage, he will not dare to come here and compromise you by his violent and unreasonable jealousy; he will be forced — it is needless to explain how — to keep his envy and rage to himself, and to suppress the enmity with which he regards Douglas Dale. Let me tell you, Madame Durski, Reginald’s enmity is no trifling rock ahead in life, and your engaged lover has that rock to dread.”

Paulina turned very pale.

“Save him from it, Mr. Carrington,” she said, appealingly. “Save him from it, and let me have a little happiness in this weary world, if such a thing there be.”

“I will, Madame Durski,” replied Victor. “You have already done as I have counselled you, and you have no reason to regret the result.”

The soft, dreamy smile of happy love stole over Paulina’s face as she listened to him.

“Let me be here with you as much as possible, and you will have no reason to fear Reginald. He is capable of anything, but he is afraid of me, and if he knows that I am determined to advance the marriage of yourself and Douglas Dale, he will not venture to oppose it openly. But there is one condition which I must append to my frequent presence here”— he spoke as though he were conferring the greatest favour on her —“Mr. Dale must not know me as Victor Carrington.”

With an expression in which there was something of the suspicious quickness which Miss Brewer had manifested when Carrington made a similar statement to her, Paulina asked him why.

Then Victor told her his version of the story of Honoria Eversleigh, the “unfortunate woman,” whom Douglas Dale’s unhappy and misguided uncle had raised to such undoubted rank and f............