But the feelings that actuated Evadne were rooted in the depths of her

being, and were such in their growth as he had no means of understanding.

Evadne loved Raymond. He was the hero of her imagination, the image carved

by love in the unchanged texture of her heart. Seven years ago, in her

youthful prime, she had become attached to him; he had served her country

against the Turks; he had in her own land acquired that military glory

peculiarly dear to the Greeks, since they were still obliged inch by inch

to fight for their security. Yet when he returned thence, and first

appeared in public life in England, her love did not purchase his, which

then vacillated between Perdita and a crown. While he was yet undecided,

she had quitted England; the news of his marriage reached her, and her

hopes, poorly nurtured blossoms, withered and fell. The glory of life was

gone for her; the roseate halo of love, which had imbued every object with

its own colour, faded;--she was content to take life as it was, and to

make the best of leaden-coloured reality. She married; and, carrying her

restless energy of character with her into new scenes, she turned her

thoughts to ambition, and aimed at the title and power of Princess of

Wallachia; while her patriotic feelings were soothed by the idea of the

good she might do her country, when her husband should be chief of this

principality. She lived to find ambition, as unreal a delusion as love. Her

intrigues with Russia for the furtherance of her object, excited the

jealousy of the Porte, and the animosity of the Greek government. She was

considered a traitor by both, the ruin of her husband followed; they

avoided death by a timely flight, and she fell from the height of her

desires to penury in England. Much of this tale she concealed from Raymond;

nor did she confess, that repulse and denial, as to a criminal convicted of

148

The Last Man