me. She even made faint, attempts at little
confidences: ' Saw I was unhappy—had
something on my mind;' and, for the matter of that,
I had plenty—plenty on my conscience, too, if
nature had been cruel enough to have inflicted
me with one. I, of course, said 'No,'  to all
these insinuations. I was not happy nor unhappy.
If I sat at the table of life, and did not
eat, it was because I had no great appetite. The
entertainment did not amuse me much, but I
had nowhere particularly to go to. She went
one day so far as to hint whether I was not
crossed in love? But I assured her not, and I
saw her grow very pale as I said it. I even
suggested, that though one might have two
attacks of the malady, like the measles, the
second one was always mild, and never hurt the
constitution. Having thus piqued her a little
about myself, I gradually unsettled her opinion
on other things, "frightened her by how the
geologists contradict Genesis, and gave her to
choose between Monsieur Cuvier and Moses.
As for India, I made her believe that we were
all heartily ashamed of what we were doing
there, spoke of the Hindoo as the model native,
and said that if the story of our atrocities were
written, Europe would rise up and exterminate
us. Hence I had not taken the C.B., nor the
V.C., nor any other alphabetical glories. In a
word, Drayton, I got her into that frame of
restlessness and fever in which all belief smacks
of foolish credulity, and the commonest
exercise of trust seems like the indulgence of a
superstition.

"All this time no mention of Loyd, not a
hint of his existence. Yesterday, however,
came a fellow here, a certain Mr. Stockwell,
with a note of introduction from Loyd, calling
him ' my intimate friend S., whom you have
doubtless heard of as a most successful
photographer. He is going to India with a commission
from the Queen,' &c. We had him to dinner,
and made him talk, as all such fellows are
ready to talk, about themselves and the fine
people who employ them. In the evening we
had his portfolio and the peerage, and so
delighted was the vulgar dog to have got into the
land of coronets and strawberry-leaves, that he
would have ignored Loyd if I had not artfully
brought him to his recollection; but he came to
the memory of ' poor Joe,' as he called him,
with such a compassionating pity, that I actually
grew to like him. He had been at the vicarage,
too, and saw its little homely ways and
small economies; and I laughed so heartily at
his stupid descriptions and vapid jokes, that I
made the ass think he was witty, and actually
repeat them. All this time imagine Florry, pale
as a corpse, or scarlet, either half fainting or in
a fever, dying to burst in with an angry indignation,
and yet restrained by maiden bashfulness.
She could bear no more by eleven o'clock,
and went off to bed under pretence of a racking
headache.

"It is a great blow at any man's favour in a
woman's esteem when you show up his
particular friend, his near intimate; and certes, I
did not spare Stockwell. You have seen me in
this part, and you can give me credit for some
powers in playing it.

"' Could that creature ever have been the
dear friend of Joseph?' said Milly, as he said
good night.

"' Why not?' I asked. ' They seem made
for each other.'

"Florry was to have come out for a sail this
morning with me, but she is not well—I suspect
sulky—and has not appeared. I therefore give
you the morning that I meant for her. Her
excuses have amazed me; because, after my last
night's success, and the sorry figure I had
succeeded in presenting L. to her, I half hoped my
own chances might be looking up. In fact,
though I have been playing a waiting game so
patiently, to all appearance, I am. driven half
mad by self-restraint. Come what may, I must
end this; besides, to-day is the fourth, on the
tenth the steamer from Alexandria will touch at
Malta; L. will therefore be at Leghorn by the
fourteenth, and here two days after—that is
to say, in twelve days more my siege must be
raised. If I were heavily ironed in a felon's
cell with the day of my execution fixed, I could
not look to the time with one-half the
heartsinking I now feel.

"I'd give—what would I not give?—to have
you near me, though in my soul I know all that
you'd say; how you'd preach never minding,
letting be, and the rest of it, just as if I could
cut out some other work for myself to-morrow,
and think no more of her. But I cannot. No,
Drayton, I cannot. Is it not too hard for the
fellow who cut his way through Lahore with
sixteen followers, and made a lane through her
Majesty's light cavalry, to be worsted, defeated,
and disgraced by a young girl, who has neither
rank, riches, nor any remarkable beauty to her
share, but is simply sustained by the resolve
that she'll not have me! Mind, D., I have
given her no opportunity of saying this since I
came last here: on the contrary, she would, if
questioned, be ready—I'd swear to it she would
—to say, ' Calvert paid me no attentions, nor
made any court to me.' She is very truthful in
everything, but who is to say what her woman's
instinct may not have revealed to her of my
love? Has not the woman a man loves always
a private key to his heart, and doesn't she go
and tumble its contents about, just out of
curiosity, ten times a day? Not that she'd ever
find a great deal either in or on mine. Neither
the indictments for murder or manslaughter,
nor that other heavier charge for H. T., have
left their traces within my pericardium, and I
could stand to back myself not to rave in a
compromising fashion if I had a fever to-morrow.
But how hollow all this boasting, when that girl
within the closed window-shutter yonder defies
me—ay, defies me! Is she to go off to her
wedding with the inner consciousness of this
victory'? There's the thought that is driving
me mad, and will, I am certain, end by
producing some dire mischief—what the doctors
call a lesion—in this unhappy brain of mine.