THE MAN OF FORTUNE. CHAPTER I. FALSEHOOD! I CANNOT tell at what instant the voice died away. The hand of the singer remained poised over the yet quivering chords; the last drop of the flood of melody she had poured into the air seemed still to hang upon her lips; and her eyes, turned skyward, appeared to be following the flight of the fading cadence as it rose, and was lost in the blue silence. He with his whole soul entranced, steeped in the poetry of the scene, and the hour-gazed into the depths of her languid orbs, and saw his heaven there. The lake-like a sapphire lost amidst the mountains -lay at their feet. Its tiny billows kissed a shore prismatic with fruit and flowers, whilst its bosom reflected like a mirror, the rugged crags of the mighty Alps, which, crowned with their diadems of eternal snow, towered majestically in the distance. The waters were dancing with their first light ripple, for the evening breeze had but thrice fanned the B cheek of the singer, and caressingly waved the long silken tresses which hung o'er her companion's face and brow, mingling them in effective contrast with his light, almost boyish curls, as his head rested upon her bosom. There was not a sound to be heard when the last sigh of the dream-like song passed from her lips; when it passed he could not tell, for the note-so sweet, so clear, so touching-had been prolonged so tenderly, had absorbed his senses so completely, that, had that evening lasted for a life, had her fair hand never quitted the chords, her eyes never turned from their upward gaze, and so continued unbroken the spell that had stolen over him, he would have asked no other joy, no other fate, than to have remained for ever, basking in the heaven of her beauty, with the undying memory of her voice enrapturing his soul. It was a wild, restless, unquiet spirit which had once beaten in that now tranquil heart. He had been a clever, headstrong boy; was an unsettled volatile man. His mind was an untidy workshop, where odd scraps of beginnings and endings of things unfinished, unconsidered, lay jumbled together without any connecting links, any continuity of plan, to give them vitality, and shape them to a purpose. Young, ardent, active and fickle, he required a constant succession of excitement. Time only served |