BY

THE AUTHOR OF

"EMILIA WYNDHAM," "THE WILMINGTONS," ETC.

So once it would have been-'tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanised my soul.

WORDSWORTH.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

COLBURN AND CO., PUBLISHERS,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1851.

249. W. 226.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM TYLER,

BOLT-COURT.

RAVENSCLIFFE,

CHAPTER I.

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,—
These three alone lend life to sovereign power:
Yet not for power

....

But to live by law,

Acting the law we live by without fear;
And because right is right, to follow right,
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.

TENNYSON.

"You have insulted my creed-you have insulted my country-you have insulted my family-you have insulted myself!Take that-and that- and that- and that!

And quick as lightning fell the flashing horsewhip upon the shoulders of the wretched and degraded man. The whip

was snapped into fifty pieces, and thrown triumphantly over his head; and then, with a shout of wild mocking laughter, the handsome young Irishman flung away, and left the victim of his passion standing there alone-though, alas! surrounded by a crowd of astonished spectators, for it was high

noon.

The unclouded sun at his meridian was shining in full splendour through the canopy of green trees which arches the broad walk at the back of St. John's College, Cambridge, and the walk was filled with gownsmen of every condition and degree, from heads of colleges to sizars. Undergraduates, masters of arts, grave professors, and wild young pupils. Gyps and laundresses, townsmen and gownsmen. The day was magnificent, and the walks were full.

The victim of this outrageous burst of passion was a tall, thin, gaunt - looking young man, with straight dark hair arranged round his face in something of the puritan cut. His features were harsh and stern, his gait ungraceful, his eye deep-set and lower