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.
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