His Darling Sin by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

"Love is by fancy led about, / From hope to fear, from joy to doubt. "

It was a week before John Faunce appeared upon the troubled scene of Grace Perivale's life. He had been in Vienna, and he called in Grosvenor Square at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of his return, in answer to three urgent letters from her ladyship which he found on his office table in Essex Street.