was once but doubt; how you have made hope
succeed a dark and listless indifference—when
I know and feel that in my struggle to be better
it is you, and you alone, are the prize before me,
and that if that be withdrawn life has no longer a
bribe to my ambition—when I think of these,
Florry, can you wonder if I want to carry away
with me some small spark that may keep the
embers alive in my heart?"

"It is not generous to urge me thus," said
she, in a faint voice.

"The grasp of the drowning man has little
time for generosity. You may not care to rescue
me, but you may have pity for my fate."

"Oh, if you but knew how sorry I am—"

"Go on, dearest. Sorry for what?"

"I don't know what I was going to say; you
have agitated and confused me so, that I feel
bewildered. I shrink from saying what would
pain you, and yet I want to be honest and
straightforward."

"If you mean that to be like the warning of
the surgeon—I must cut deep to cure you—I
can't say I have courage for it."

For some minutes they walked on side by
side without a word. At length he said, in a grave
and serious tone, "I have asked your aunt, and
she has promised me that, except strictly amongst
yourselves, my name is not to be mentioned
when I leave this. She will, if you care for them,
give you my reasons; and I only advert to it
now amongst other last requests. This is a
promise, is it not?"

She pressed his hand and nodded.

"Will you now grant me one favour? Wear
this ring for my sake; a token of mere memory,
no more! Nay, I mean to ask Milly to wear
another. Don't refuse me." He drew her hand
towards him as he spoke, and slipped a rich
turquoise ring upon her finger. Although her
hand trembled, and she averted her head, she
had not courage to say him no.

"You have not told us where you are going
to, nor when we are to hear from you!" said she,
after a moment.

"I don't think I know either!" said he, in
his usual reckless way. "I have half a mind
to join Schamyl—I know him—or take a turn
with the Arabs against the French. I suppose,"
added he, with a bitter smile, "it is my fate
always to be on the beaten side, and I'd not
know how to comport myself as a winner."

"There's Milly making a signal to us. Is it
dinner-time already?" said she.

"Ay, my last dinner here!" he muttered.
She turned her head away, and did not speak.

On that last evening at the villa nothing
very eventful occurred. All that need be
recorded will be found in the following letter,
which Calvert wrote to his friend Drayton, after
he had wished his hosts a good night, and gained
his room, retiring, as he did, early, to be up
betimes in the morning and catch the first train
for Milan.

"Dear Drayton,—I got your telegram, and
though I suspect you are astray in your 'law,'
and don't believe these fellows can touch me,
I don't intend to open the question, or reserve
the point for the twelve judges, but mean to
evacuate Flanders at once; indeed, my chief
difficulty was to decide which way to turn, for
having the whole world before me where to
choose, left me in that indecision which the
poet pronounces national when he says,

I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear!

Chance, however, has done for me what my judgment
could not. I have been up to Milan and
had a look through the newspapers, and I see
what I have often predicted has happened. The
Rajahs of Bengal have got sick of their
benefactors, and are bent on getting rid of what we
love to call the blessings of the English rule in
India. Next to a society for the suppression of
creditors, I know of no movement which could
more thoroughly secure my sympathy. The
brown skin is right. What has he to do with
those covenanted and uncovenanted Scotch-
men who want to enrich themselves by bullying
him? What need has he of governors-general,
political residents, collectors, and commanders-
in-chief? Could he not raise his indigo, water
his rice-fields, and burn his widow, without
any help of ours? particularly as our help
takes the shape of taxation and vexatious
interference.

"I suppose all these are very unpatriotic
sentiments; but in the same proportion that
Britons never will be slaves, they certainly
have no objection to make others such, and I
shudder in the very marrow of my morality to
think that but for the accident of an accident I
might at this very moment have been employed
to assist in repressing the noble aspirations of
niggerhood, and helping to stifle the cry of
freedom that now resounds from the Sutlej to
the Ganges. Is not that a twang from your own
lyre, Master D.? Could our Own Correspondent
have come it stronger?

"Happily, her Majesty has no further occasion
for my services, and I can take a brief from
the other side. Expect to hear, therefore, in
some mysterious paragraph, 'That the mode in
which the cavalry were led, or the guns pointed,
plainly indicated that a European soldier held
command on this occasion; and, indeed, some
assert that an English officer was seen directing
the movements on our flank.' To which let me
add the hope that the— Fusiliers may be
there to see; and if I do not give the major a
lesson in battalion drill, call me a Dutchman!
There is every reason why the revolt should
succeed. I put aside all the bosh about an
enslaved race and a just cause, and come to the
fact of the numerical odds opposed. The climate
intolerable to one, and easily borne by the other;
the distance from which reinforcements must
come; and, last of all, the certainty that if the
struggle only last long enough to figure in two
budgets, John Bull will vote it a bore, and refuse
to pay for it. But here am I getting political
when I only meant to be personal; and now to