Politics had run high in the land of late, and every where parties were forming. Since the battle of Sedgemoor, and the merciless cruelty with which the royal judges had crushed out the life of that abortive insurrection, and drowned its ashes in floods of innocent gore, the rage of factions had waxed wilder in the country than they had done since the reign of the first Charles, the second English king of that unhappy race, the last of whom now filled the painful seat of royalty.
Yet all was hushed as yet and quiet, as the calm which precedes the bursting of a thunder-cloud. Secluded as Widecomb Manor was, and far divided from the seats of the other gentry of Devonshire by tracts of moor and forest, and little intercourse as Jasper had held hitherto with his equals in rank and birth—limited as that intercourse had been to a few visits of form, and a few annual banquets—the stir of the political world reached even the remote House in the Woods.
The mad whirl of politics was precisely the thing to captivate a mind such as Jasper’s; and the instant the subject was broached to him, by some of the more leading youths of the county, he plunged headlong into its deepest vortices, and was soon steeped to the lips in conspiracy.
Events rendered it necessary that he should visit the metropolis, and twice during the autumn he had already visited it—alone. And twice he had returned to his beautiful young wife, who hailed his coming as a heathen priestess would have greeted the advent of her god, more alienated, colder, and more causeless than before.
Since he had last returned, the coldness was converted into cruelty, active, malicious, fiendish cruelty. Hard words, incessant taunts, curses—nay, blows! Yet still, faithful to the end and fond, she still loved him. Still would have laid down the dregs of the life which had been so happy till she knew him, and which he had made so wretched, to win one of his old fond smiles, one of his once caressing tones, one of his heartfelt kisses.
Alas! alas! Theresa! Too late, it was all too late!
He had learned, for the first time, in London, the value of his rank, his wealth, his position. He had been flattered by men of lordly birth, _fêted_ and fondled by the fairest and noblest ladies of the land. He had learned to be ambitious—he had begun to thirst for social eminence, for political ascendency, for place, power, dominion. His talents had created a favorable impression in high quarters—his enthusiasm and daring rashness had made an effect—he was already a marked man among the conspirators, who were aiming to pull down the sovereignty of the Stuarts. Hints had been even thrown out to him, of the possibility of allying himself to interests the most important, through the beautiful and gorgeous daughter of one of the oldest of the peers of England. The hint had been thrown out, moreover, by a young gentleman of his own county—by one who had seen Theresa. And when he started and expressed his wonder, and alluded tremulously to his _wife_, he had been answered by a smile of intelligence, coupled with an assurance that every one understood all about Theresa Allan; and that surely he would not be such a fool as to sacrifice such prospects for a little village paramour. “The story of the concealed wedding took in nobody, my lad,” the speaker added, “except those, like myself, who chose to believe any thing you chose to assert. Think of it, _mon cher_; and, believe me, that _liaison_ will be no hindrance.”