All was undisturbed in the dining-room; the table was just as they had left it. Victor approached the table, took up the carafon containing curacoa, and, holding it up to the light with one hand, poured the contents of a small phial into it with the other. He watched the one liquid mingling with the other until no further traces of the operation were visible; and then setting the carafon softly down where he had found it, went smiling across the hall and joined the ladies.

CHAPTER XXX.

FOUND WANTING.

Reginald Eversleigh was in complete ignorance of Victor Carrington's proceedings, when he received the letter summoning him to an interview with his friend at a stated time. Carrington's estimate of Reginald's character was quite correct. All this time his vanity had been chafing under Paulina's silence and apparent oblivion of him.

He had not received any letter from Paulina, fond as she had been of writing to him long, half-despairing letters, full of complaint against destiny, and breathing in every line that hopeless love which the beautiful Austrian woman had so long wasted on the egotist and coward, whose baseness she had half suspected even while she still clung to him.

Sir Reginald had been in the habit of receiving these letters as coolly as if they had been but the fitting tribute to his transcendant merits.

"Poor Paulina!" he murmured sometimes, as he folded the perfumed pages, after running his eyes carelessly over their contents; "poor Paulina!

how devotedly she loves me. And what a pity she hasn't a penny she can call her own. If she were a great heiress, now, what could be more delightful than this devotion? But, under existing circumstances, it is nothing but an embarrassment--a bore. Unfortunately, I cannot be brutal enough to tell her this plainly: and so matters go on. And I fear, in spite of all my hints, she may believe in the possibility of my ultimately making a sacrifice of my prospects For her sake."

This was how Reginald Eversleigh felt, while Paulina was scattering at his feet the treasures of a disinterested affection.

He had been vain and selfish from boyhood, and his vices grew stronger with increasing years. His nature was hardened, and not chastened, by the trials and disappointments which had befallen him.

In the hour of his poverty and degradation it had been a triumph for him to win the devotion of a woman whom many men--men better than himself--had loved in vain.

It was a rich tribute to the graces of him who had once been the irresistible Reginald Eversleigh, the favourite of fashionable drawing-rooms.

Thus it was that, when Paulina's letters suddenly ceased, Sir Reginald was at once mortified and indignant. He had made up his mind to obey Victor's suggestion, or rather, command, by abstaining from either visiting or writing to Paulina; but he had not been prepared for a similar line of proceeding on her part, and it hurt his vanity much.

She had ceased to write. Could she have ceased to care for him? Could any one else, richer--more disinterested--have usurped his place in her heart?

The baronet remembered what Victor Carrington had said about Douglas Dale; but he could not for one moment believe that his cousin--a man whom he considered infinitely beneath him--had the power to win Paulina Durski's affection.

"She may perhaps encourage him," he said to himself, "especially now that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a husband--women are so mercenary. But her heart will never cease to be mine."

Sir Reginald waited a week, a fortnight, but there came no letter from Paulina. He called on Carrington, according to appointment, but his friend had changed his mind, or his tactics, and gave him no explanation.

Victor had been a daily visitor at Hilton House during the week which had intervened since the day he had dined there and been introduced to Douglas Dale. His observation had enabled him to decide upon accelerating the progress of his designs. The hold which Paulina had obtained upon Douglas Dale's affection was secure; he had proposed to her much sooner than Victor had anticipated; the perfect understanding and confidence subsisting between them rendered the cautious game which he had intended to play unnecessary, and he did not now care how soon a final rupture between Paulina and Reginald should take place. Indeed, for two of his purposes--the establishment of an avowed quarrel between Douglas Dale and his cousin, Sir Reginald, and the infliction of ever-growing injury on Paulina's reputation,--the sooner such a rupture could be brought about the better. Therefore Victor Carrington assumed a tone of reserve and mystery, which did not fail to exasperate Sir Reginald.

"Do not question me, Reginald," he said. "You are afflicted with a lack of moral courage, and your want of nerve would only enfeeble my hand.

Know nothing--expect nothing. Those who are at work for you know how to do their work quietly. Oh, by the way, I want you to sign a little document--very much the style of thing you gave me at Raynham Castle."

Nothing could be more careless than the Frenchman's tone and manner as he said this; but the document in question was a deed of gift, by which Reginald Eversleigh bestowed upon Victor Carrington the clear half of whatever income should arise to him, from real or personal property, from the date of the first day of June following.

"I am to give you half my income?"

"Yes, my dear Reginald, after the first of next June. You know that I am working laboriously to bring about good fortune for you. You cannot suppose that I am working for nothing. If you do not choose to sign this document, neither do I choose to devote myself any longer to your interest."

"And what if you fail?"

"If I fail, the document in question is so much waste paper, since you have no income at present, nor are likely to have any income between this and next June, unless by my agency."

The result was the same as usual. Reginald signed the deed, without even taking the trouble to study its full bearing.

"Have you seen Paulina lately?" he asked, afterwards.

"Not very lately."

"I don't know what's amiss with her," exclaimed Reginald, peevishly; "she has not written to me to ask explanation of my absence and silence."

"Perhaps she grew tired of writing to a person who valued her letters so lightly."

"I was glad enough to hear from her," answered Reginald; "but I could not be expected to find time to answer all her letters. Women have nothing better to do than to scribble long epistles."

"Perhaps Madame Durski has found some one who will take the trouble to answer her letters," said Victor.

After this, the two men parted, and Reginald Eversleigh called a cab, in which he drove down to Hilton House.

He might have stayed away much longer, in self-interested obedience to Carrington, had he been sure of Paulina's unabated devotion; but he was piqued by her silence, and he wanted to discover whether there was a rival in the field.

He knew Madame Durski's habits, and that it was not till late in the afternoon that she was to be seen.

It was nearly six o'clock when he drove up to the door of Hilton House.

Carlo Toas admitted him, and favoured him with a searching and somewhat severe scrutiny, as he led the way to the drawing-room in which Paulina was wont to receive her guests.

Here Sir Reginald felt some little surprise, and a touch of mortification, on beholding the aspect of things. He had expected to find Paulina pensive, unhappy, perhaps ill. He had expected to see her agitated at his coming. He had pondered much upon the cessation of her letters; and he had told himself that she had ceased to write because she was angry with him--with that anger which exists only where there is love.

To his surprise, he found her brilliant, radiant, dressed in her most charming style.

Never had he seen her looking more beautiful or more happy.

He pressed the widow's hand tenderly, and contemplated her for some moments in silence.

"My dear Paulina," he said at last, "I never saw you looking more lovely than to-night. And yet to-night I almost feared to find you ill."

"Indeed; and why so?" she asked. Her tone was the ordinary tone of society, from which it was impossible to draw any inference.

"Because it is so long since I heard from you."

"I have grown tired of writing letters that were rarely honoured by your notice."

"So, so," thought the baronet; "I was right. She is offended."

"To what do I owe this visit?" asked Madame Durski.

"She is desperately angry," thought the baronet. "My dear Paulina," he said, aloud, "can you imagine that your letters were indifferent to me?

I have been busy, and, as you know, I have been away from London."

"Yes," she said; "you spent your Christmas very agreeably, I believe."

"Not at all, I assure you. A bachelors' party in a country parsonage is one of the dullest things possible, to say nothing of the tragical event which ended my visit," added Reginald, his cheek paling as he spoke.