At length there came one bright morning,
when,dismissed as convalescent, he tottered
out through the hospital gates,leaning on my
arm, and feeble as an infant. He was not cured;
neither, as I then learned to my horror and
anguish, was it possible that he ever could be
cured. He might live, with care, for some
years; but the lungs were injured beyond hope
of remedy, and a strong and healthy man he could
never be again. These, spoken aside to me.
were the parting words of the chief physician,
who advised me to take him further south without
delay.

I took him to a little coast-town called Rocca,
some thirty miles beyond Genoa—- a sheltered
lonely place along the Riviera, where the sea
was even bluer than the sky, and the cliffs were
green with strange tropical plants, cacti, and
aloes, and Egyptian palms. Here we lodged
in the house of a small tradesman; and Mat, to
use his own words, "set to work at getting
well in good earnest." But, alas! it was a work
whiclh no earnestness could forward. Day after
day he went down to the beach, and sat for hours
drinking the sea air and watching the sails that
came and went in the offing. By-and-by he
could go no further than the garden of the
house in which we lived. A little later, and he
spent his days on a couch beside the open window,
waiting patiently for the end. Ay, for
the end! It had come to that. He was fading
fast, waning with the waning summer, and
conscious that the Reaper was at hand. His
whole aim now was to soften the agony of my
remorse, and prepare me for what must shortly
come.

"I would not live longer, if I could," he
said, lying on his couch one summer evening,
and looking up to the stars. " If I had my
choice at this moment, I would ask to go. I
should like Gianetta to know that I forgave her."

" She shall know it," I said, trembling
suddenly from head to foot.

He pressed my hand.

And you'll write to father?"

"I will."

I had drawn a little back, that he might not
see the tears raining down my cheeks; but he
raised himself on his elbow, and looked round.

"Don't fret, Ben," he whispered; laid his
head back wearily upon the pillow—- and so died.

And this was the end of it. This was the
end of all that made life life to me. I buried
him there, in hearing of the wash of a strange
sea on a strange shore. I stayed by the grave
till the priest and the bystanders were gone. I
saw the earth filled in to the last sod, and the
gravedigger stamp it down with his feet. Then,
and not till then, I felt that I had lost him
for ever—- the friend I had loved, and hated,
and slain. Then, and not till then, I knew
that all rest, and joy, and hope were over for me.
From that moment my heart hardened within
me, and my life was filled with loathing. Day
and night, land and sea, labour and rest, food
and sleep, were alike hateful to me. It was
the curse of Cain, and that my brother had
pardoned me made it lie none the lighter. Peace
on earth was for me no more, and goodwill
towards men was dead in my heart for ever.
Remorse softens some natures; but it poisoned
mine. I hated all mankind but above all mankind
I hated the woman who had come between
us two, and ruined both our lives.

He had bidden me seek her out, and be the
messenger of his forgiveness. I had sooner
have gone down to the port of Genoa and
taken upon me the serge cap and shotted chain
of any galley-slave at his toil in the public
works; but for all that I did my best to obey
him. I went back, alone and on foot. I went
back, intending to say to her, " Gianetta Coneglia,
he forgave you; but God never will." But
she was gone. The little shop was let to a
fresh occupant; and the neighbours only knew
that mother and daughter had left the place
quite suddenly, and that Gianetta was supposed
to be under the " protection" of the Marchese
Loralano. How I made inquiries here and
there—- how I heard that they had gone to
Naples—- and how, being restless and reckless
of my time, I worked my passage in a French
steamer, and followed her—- how, having found
the sumptuous villa that was now hers, I
learned that she had left there some ten days
and gone to Paris, where the Marchese was
ambassador for the Two Sicilies—- how, working
my passage back again to Marseilles, and
thence, in part by the river and in part by the
rail, I made my way to Paris—- how, day after
day, I paced the streets and the parks, watched
at the ambassador's gates, followed his carriage,
and at last, after weeks of waiting, discovered
her address how, having written to request an
interview, her servants spurned me from her
door and flung my letter in my face—- how,
looking up at her windows, I then, instead of
forgiving, solemnly cursed her with the bitterest
curses my tongue could devise—- and how, this
done, I shook the dust of Paris from my feet, and
became a wanderer upon the face of the earth,
are facts which I have now no space to tell.

The next six or eight years of my life
were shifting and unsettled enough. A morose
and restless man, I took employment here and
there, as opportunity offered, turning my hand
to many things, and caring little what I earned,
so long as the work was hard and the change
incessant. First of all I engaged myself as
chief engineer in one of the French steamers
plying between Marseilles and Constantinople.
At Constantinople I changed to one of the
Austrian Lloyd's boats, and worked for some time
to and from Alexandria, Jaffa, and those parts.
After that, I fell in with a party of Mr. Layard's
men at Cairo, and so went up the Nile and
took a turn at the excavations of the mound of
Nimroud. Then I became a working engineer on
the new desert line between and Suez;
and by-and-by I worked my passage to Bombay,
and took service as an engine litter on one
of the great Indian railways. I stayed a long time
in India; that is to say, I stayed nearly two
years, which was a long time for me; and I
might not even have left so soon, but for the war