Shall she not, gentlemen?
* * * * * * *
In one fortnight from this time, while Mrs. Rocke and Clara were
still living comfortably at Willow Heights and waiting anxiously to
hear from Traverse, whom they still supposed to be practising his
profession at St Louis, they received his last letter written on the
eve of his departure for the seat of war. At first the news
overwhelmed them with grief, but then they sought relief in faith,
answered his letter cheerfully and commended him to the infinite
mercy of God.
CHAPTER XV.
CAP CAPTIVATES A CRAVEN.
"He knew himself a villain, but he deemed
The rest no better than the thing he seemed;
And scorned the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirits plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loathed him crouched and--dreaded, too."
The unregenerate human heart is, perhaps, the most inconsistent
thing in all nature; and in nothing is it more capricious than in
the manifestations of its passions; and in no passion is it so
fantastic as in that which it miscalls love, but which is really
often only appetite.
From the earliest days of manhood Craven Le Noir had been the votary
of vice, which he called pleasure. Before reaching the age of
twenty-five he had run the full course of dissipation, and found
himself ruined in health, degraded in character and disgusted with
life.
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