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Chapter XVIII.

The following day, after Doctor Valentine had returned from his visiting tour, and the two friends were sitting cosily together over their pipes and whisky toddy, the Doctor continued his story.

"I left off last night at a critical stage," he said, "with despair and death staring me in the face; but, as you know, the lady recovered, and a month later on she was as sprightly and fascinating as ever, and quite ready to start afresh. But the shock I had received was not to be lightly got over, and the mental torture I had suffered had made a lasting impression on my mind. I confided to her a harrowing account of what I had endured, and I expatiated on the awful consequences which had threatened us both, but to my grief and surprise she appeared to be quite unmoved at the recital, and she persisted in treating the matter with amiable levity, laughing at my terrors, and stopping my mouth with kisses. I shrank from her with a pang of resentment, not unmixed with disgust, and for the first time the scales fell from my page 488eyes, the charm under which I had been held enthralled was dispelled, and a gleam of light revealed to me the true nature of our attachment. Was this, then, love? this the tender and self-denying heart which could only beat in unison with mine? Was this the exalted passion which I fondly believed to be fired by a generous spirit of sacrifice and mutual devotion?"

"You might have remembered the words of your favourite poet," said Raleigh—

"'In her first passion woman loves her lover,
In all the others all she loves is love.'

You were not the first, dear friend."

"No! nor likely to be the last," exclaimed the other gloomily. "Such in truth was the case. But the revelation was so inexpressibly painful to me that I strove to blot it out or to explain it away. I would gladly have shut my eyes, if by that means the impression could have been removed, but it was ineffaceable! Every day that passed made me feel more poignantly that the relations under which we lived were becoming unbearable, and pregnant of future evil and wretchedness. We had many bitter altercations. She, on her part, taxed me with coldness and ingratitude, and twitted me with the sacrifices she page 489had made on my behalf; I reproached her for want of heart, for want of candour, and above all for the selfish callousness she had exhibited when life and honour had been at stake. These distressing scenes became of frequent occurrence, but they generally ended in tears and reconciliation, when my struggles to revolt were stifled in her embraces. Thus we continued for a time to live together, but no longer with trustful and unalloyed love, as at first. The overmastering fear of a recurrence of the former terrible ordeal nerved me at last to take up a more dignified and determined stand. I repeatedly urged that we should get married, as the only safeguard against petty vexations and this fear of consequences. After much passive resistance and many delays, she consented with apparent delight, and everything was arranged.

"We had left London for the happy occasion. I procured the licence, I bought the ring, and I returned to her with a lighter heart than I had known for a long time, and with an inexpressible sense of relief from all further anxiety. At that moment I was happy, supremely happy, but it was fated to be of short duration. I found my lady-love in tears. She received me with expostulations, darkly hinted at some impediment to our union, and she begged of me to put it off. page 490I was seized with a fearful revulsion of feeling; all the concentrated bitterness and exasperation which had been brooding in my soul for many months burst forth in one agonising paroxysm. I wept with rage, but it was the rage of despair. It appeared to me as if the whole edifice of my hopes and earthly happiness had been rudely shaken to the ground, and that all I cared for in the world was lost—for ever lost!

"Then I was roused to furious indignation. I tore up the licence into shreds and stamped them under foot, I broke the wedding-ring into pieces and flung them at her. I spurned her from me, and swore that I would never look upon her again. Then it was her turn to get alarmed. She pleaded, implored, but it was useless; the bonds that had held me to her had burst asunder—I was free. That night I returned hurriedly to town, and removed my effects from her house. I disposed of all my goods and chattels, terminated all my engagements, turned my back on all my professional ties and prospects, and while still under the violent excitation of this break-up, I fled the country. Within a week's time I was on my way to America."

"Have you never been able to account for her strange conduct?" asked Raleigh. "If she really loved you, as you believe she did, why should she page 491have raised all these objections to a permanent and legitimate union?"

"It is hard to say," replied the Doctor sadly. "The ways of woman are often inscrutable. I have had my suspicions. As I told you before, she was a widow, and much older than myself, She was also a woman of the world, of independent means, who moved in good society, and had a large and distinguished circle of friends. I have since reflected that she was always uncommunicative concerning her former life and relations. There may have been secrets I know nothing about, or she may have prized her liberty above all, and after the unpleasant experience of her first marriage, have shrunk from putting her pretty head into another noose. 'Once bit, twice shy.' It was doubtless all for the best, and as I see it now I ought to consider myself fortunate to have escaped. But the usual order of things was reversed in our case, and she felt and acted not as women do, but as most men of the world would have done under similar circumstances."

"Do you really think so?" remarked the philosopher abstractedly. "You seem to have taken a regular down on matrimony."

"I have come to the conclusion," continued Doctor Valentine, "that men make women wives when it is page 492utterly impossible to make mistresses of them, or when the conventional usage pays best. How in the name of common sense and experience it should be otherwise I cannot see. Fancy any sane man saying to an average woman, after a mere superficial acquaintance with her for a short time, under circumstances that would deceive the devil himself, that a sufficient knowledge of her character, capabilities, and person has been obtained to warrant him in chaining himself, body and soul, to her for the rest of his natural life—— God help such infatuated fools."

"But in your case there were none of these disadvantages, for surely you must have been pretty well acquainted with one another."

"I thought so then; I don't think so now. Perhaps she had a better insight into my character than I had into hers, for she remains in some respects an enigma to me."

"I am inclined to disagree with your theory," remarked the philosopher; "nor do I believe that the proverbial unhappiness of hastily contracted marriages is to be attributed to the want of better acquaintance between the parties. The cause of the evil lies deeper, and will generally be found to arise from sensual desire on the one side or from selfish and sordid motives on the other. For my part, I think page 493with sage old Dr. Johnson that marriages would be all the better if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor, with simply due regard to the disposition, fortune, and social position of the parties."

"And leave love out of the question? How would you like to be irrevocably tied to a mate under such conditions? There are happy unions, no doubt, but I believe that married life is, as a rule, a whitewashed sepulchre; that its secret recesses hold the faded relics of abandoned hopes and fond illusions. If not, then the nature of man at forty must be very much altered from what it generally is at thirty."

"It is not that either," remarked the philosopher, "but simply that the average mortal is almost totally devoid of the passionate enthusiasm and acute sensibilities which characterise men of your temperament. Poets are notoriously unfortunate in their conjugal relations; but then the world is not peopled with poets. Conventional life is a species of slavery to which ordinary men and women readily submit, and conventional matrimony is in keeping with the rest."

"I would sooner, like the donkey," exclaimed Valentine, "go in for liberty, thistle, and the rest."

"You believe in the principles of free love, then," observed Raleigh; "but although that may be very well in theory, I can answer for it that in practice"——

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"I admit," interrupted the Doctor, "that such irregular connections, although free from the galling sense of bondage, and more congenial to our natural tastes, are yet not the happiest—or, at least, they are not exempt from thorns among the roses. There is an everlasting, never-departing fiend that watches over all such tender love-passages. He looms out in the future, never seeming to be actually present, until he reveals himself in all the misery of separation or perhaps desertion—haunting you with a thousand reproaches even in the moments when you feel most hopeful. He is ever whispering the possibility of certain hateful contingencies that would inevitably turn your ideal kind of life into a stern, uncongenial, vulgar reality, such as divorce suits, the advent of children, or infidelity. And on that devil's forehead there is written, in characters that you must see every time he appears, the fatal word inevitable. It is at once the charm and the poignant sting of all such unions as these, that they must be brief, and have no element of constancy in them."

"Go on with your story," said Raleigh. "Where did your travels lead you?"

"They led me a long round, and a thankless one," pursued the Doctor. "In the frame of mind I then was in I suppose it would have been so wherever I page 495had gone, for I was well-nigh broken-hearted. I became morose and cynical, absorbed in self-tormenting reflections, and indifferent as to my surroundings. I landed in New York, thence wandered through several of the States, living from hand to mouth, and without any settled purpose. For some months I travelled about as perambulating doctor to a life insurance agent. He was a vulgar, brazen-faced humbug, but an amusing cuss, whose powers of lying I have never known surpassed. I afterwards went south, and made my way to Brazil."

"And what impression did you carry away of Brother Jonathan and his country?"

"One of vastness, of unbounded resources, of untiring energy, of heart-stirring liberty. A great people, sir, in a great country. One with the grandest future before it in the universe. Although a stranger in the land, lonely and depressed, I could not resist the inspiration which animates that strong and enterprising people; I was carried along with the mighty stream, and felt to be a part of it. Even now any allusion to that glorious republic fires me with a glow of enthusiasm. Yes, my boy, if you want to enlarge your notions, to shake off the sloth and prejudice in which you have been bred—if you want to brace yourself to great things, then go to the United States page 496of America. I should grieve to part with you—grieve to my inmost soul—but I would make that sacrifice, ay, contribute my last dollar towards paying your expenses, that you might enjoy that privilege before you die."

"Thanks, old man !" replied Raleigh, laughing. "Lor', what an enthusiast you are. Such a fiery spirit in such a frail and diminutive body. You are of the stuff that fanatic missionaries or African explorers are made of. For my part, I would sooner be excused. Then there is a reverse to the medal which you never notice, but which would probably be first to engage my attention. Personally, I do not worship 'the almighty dollar,' and I fancy that I should be very much out of my element among those who worship nothing else. Still, I should like to see North America, if it were only for the scenery."

"Surely," remarked the Doctor, "the genius and institutions of a great nation would be much more worthy of your study?"

"I don't know so much about that," replied the other. "Democracy is not a very elevating or engaging topic, and the political government of the United States, with its mob rule, its unblushing corruption, and unscrupulous wire-pulling, would not be to my taste. Is it from thence that you have derived your highly democratic notions?"

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"I always had democratic notions," expostulated Valentine warmly, "as my sympathies have ever been with liberty and the aspirations of the people; but my residence in the great republic has developed and strengthened those early convictions into a firm and boundless faith—a faith in the noble cause of oppressed humanity, a belief in the rights of the people and in popular government. I admit its abuses, but they do not affect the mighty principles involved or detract from the great purpose in view. I am at heart a red-hot republican, a leveller if you like—perhaps not far removed from a socialist."

"Alack-a-day !" exclaimed Raleigh, "how we are fated to differ in all things. I came out here with liberal tendencies, and a foolish but prevalent idea that many of these (so-called) reforms, so ardently desired and agitated for in the old country, would be productive of unmixed good, such as universal suffrage, the ballot, payment of members, state education, etc., etc. Here we see all these boasted reforms carried out to their utmost limits, the most advanced Radical has nothing more to clamour for, but with what result? One turns in disgust from the pitiable exhibition of these colonial politics. What with their everlasting tinkering at legislation, their pettifogging local squabbles, their miserable subserviency to every page 498popular outcry, and their lavish expenditure, one may well ask of what benefit responsible government has been to us. The country progresses, indeed, because the conditions for development are so favourable that it is bound to do so, but it is not in consequence of its laws, but rather in spite of them. Should I return to the Old World, after what I have learnt and observed in the New, it will be as a thorough-paced Conservative. But we won't discuss politics. Go on with your story."

"I arrived at Rio Janeiro," continued the Doctor, "just as the Emperor of Brazil was fitting out the naval expedition to Parana for securing the right of navigating the Paraguay river. There was much excitement over the event at the time, and some lively adventure was expected to ensue. The novelty of the thing attracted me, and I volunteered for service. I was appointed assistant surgeon on board one of their ironclads, and for the first time in my life I had to don a uniform and strut about with a sword."

"It must have been an exciting change, and no doubt furnished many a scene of adventure," observed the philosopher.

"Far from it," said the Doctor. "It was on the contrary a most tame and uneventful affair throughout. page 499The expedition was a complete failure, and we returned, after long and dreary suspense, entirely baffled and disconcerted."

"But was not the novelty of the life an attraction to you? For my part, I have often repined at the enforced dulness of peaceful and orderly existence. I should have liked to knock about the world as you have done, and above all things to have seen some active service. What a host of interesting reminiscences you must have carried away, what a storehouse your mind must be"——

"My dear fellow!" interrupted Doctor Valentine, "my mind is a blank! Days and months and even years have passed, and left not a vestige behind them. I know that I got through a certain amount of time, and that I went mechanically through a certain routine, and that is about all I do know. The greatest part of our time was spent beating about in an aimless way, under a torrid and unhealthy climate, doomed to inactivity and disappointment. I was in a misanthropical frame of mind, and altogether out of my element. On the return of the expedition I gladly obtained my discharge, and made my way back to Old England, no sadder but a wiser man."

"You are certainly a queer fellow, Val, and I think I shall give up the attempt to make you out. I know page 500you to be one of the most observant of men, with a keen humour, and yet you would make me believe that your mind is a blank—that you travelled round the world without seeing or noting anything."

"The explanation is simple enough," said the Doctor. "The impressions we carry away in our minds are like those made on the negative in the photographer's camera, and depend for their distinctness much more on the sensitiveness of the plate than on the striking features of the object in view. My organ of receptivity was much out of order, for it has recorded very little. Well, on my arrival in London, after an absence of several years, I heard for the first time of my mother's death, and I was deeply affected by the news. My only surviving brother, who is in the army, was away on foreign service, and thus I had no home to go to. In this melancholy state of mind I wandered about the old haunts, to find them changed in many respects, and deserted of former companions, so that my first impressions were bitterly disappointing. Then gradually the old life returned to me. I kept stumbling across chums and school-mates, my interest in my medical associations revived, and I felt more like my former self. While I was still undecided what to do, I happened one day to run into the arms of my old pal Marmaduke. He was the page 501chap I bolted off to the stage with, but how transmogrified. He had soon repented of his vagaries, and had made ample amends for youthful indiscretions by settling down to steady business. I hardly knew him again, he was so staid and prim, dressed in irreproachable black, and looking the pink of propriety. Our unexpected meeting was a jolly one, and it seemed as if we should never find time to communicate all we had to say to one another. My friend, on his part, had settled down into a most respectable member of society, painstaking and thrifty. He had succeeded fairly well, and had established a good country practice in Devonshire. Nothing would do but I had to accompany him there, and once domiciled in his comfortable but rather cheerless bachelor quarters, the difficulty was to get away again. I was induced to assist him occasionally in his practice, and to relieve him of irksome work. We got on capitally together, and after a time Marmaduke, who was in rather delicate health, and in great need of a change, seized this opportunity of taking a holiday, and left me as his locum tenens. I took to the work kindly. I soon got accustomed to my novel surroundings, and made my début as a country practitioner with considerable success. In truth, after my sorry adventures and lonely wander-page 502ings, I was delighted with the change. I began about this time also to take an increased interest in my profession. I gave myself entirely up to it, was devoted to my patients, and soon managed to gain their confidence and goodwill; and I was fortunate also in effecting a few very successful cures, of which the fame travelled far and wide. Marmaduke was an excellent fellow, but it had to be admitted that he was rather 'a stick.' In company he was inclined to be stiff and formal, and his great idea was to study appearances and keep up the dignity of the profession. Perhaps I went to the opposite extreme, but at any rate I managed to make myself acceptable to the neighbourhood, and, without flattery, I can claim to have become extremely popular. My naturally exuberant spirits returned to me, I gave them full scope, and they would appear to have been appreciated. I also took an interest in local entertainments; I was nominated president of a dramatic club, I gave lectures, followed the hounds, and was a judge at a baby show. Moreover, I had the good sense to keep aloof from politics, and I carefully avoided religious controversy. In short, I got on amazingly well; I felt secure and happy once more, and for the time I led—believe it or not, as you like—a highly proper and virtuous life. When Mar-page 503maduke returned, after a prolonged absence, he could not help being highly gratified at the flourishing state of the practice, and he congratulated me warmly on my success. There was then an ample field for both of us, and we entertained the idea of a permanent partnership—an arrangement which would have benefited him, and been the means of establishing me in a prosperous career."

"Then why the deuce," exclaimed Raleigh, "did you not take the opportunity? Even such a wild erratic highflyer as yourself would, in the course of a few years, have been metamorphosed into a dapper, discreet, and steady-going family doctor, with an eye to the main chance; and although the caged eagle is not supposed to mate, I would have laid any odds that before you were much older you would have chosen unto yourself a wife from among the pretty squires' daughters in the county, and found yourself in the happy process of bringing up a family in the way they should go. Whatever else you might turn out, dear Val, I would stake my life on it that you would make a kind and indulgent paterfamilias."

"I don't doubt it myself," remarked the Doctor, "for I was always very fond of children; and I don't mind admitting that the sort of vista you have been unfolding has more than once passed before my page 504mental vision, but—it was not to be! My friend had many good qualities, marred by one hateful foible—he was envious. It was the one blot on an otherwise kindly and blameless character, and it was the source of misery to himself and of unpleasantness to all those in any way associated with him."

"He must have been a fool," observed Raleigh, "if he doubted your loyalty."

"I don't know that he did that—at any rate I never even in my own mind accused him of doing me such an injustice, but he raged inwardly at the preference that was shown to me."

"It is not pleasant, you know," said the philosopher, "to be relegated to a back seat."

"He never would have been professionally," replied Valentine. "His medical abilities were of a high order, and were fully appreciated. I considered him my superior, and would frankly and willingly have yielded him the pas, but it was out of my power to make him genial or companionable. He had been a roistering fellow as a student, but had gradually crystallised into a dry and frigid disposition that was not taking with strangers. Towards me he became reserved, moody, and even suspicious, and I soon discovered that we should never be able to pull together. My mind was soon made up, and without page 505waiting for an open quarrel I announced my determination to depart in peace. When this became known much regret was expressed in the district, and strong representations were made to induce me to stop, in which even Marmaduke joined in a half-hearted sort of way. I promptly relieved him from any further anxiety on the matter. We parted good friends, and we have frequently corresponded together since, although I am not much given to that sort of thing. He always continued to harp on the same string, his regret at my having left him, and I daresay it is genuine—while I am away! These splenetic and self-tormenting characters are much to be pitied. I have forgiven him from my inmost heart long ago, but I doubt whether he has ever forgiven himself. I returned straightway to town, where I soon became drawn into the whirl and excitement of the great centre of life. I was fired with a new ambition to rise in my profession, and to qualify myself for the highest honours. I realised keenly all my deficiencies, and especially my want of surgical experience. But I was not yet twenty-eight, I had means at my disposal, and as usual I was full of hope and ardour. So I pulled myself together and went in for hard study, and, I am sorry to say, a hard life also."

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"What we might call burning the candle at both ends," remarked the philosopher.

"That's just it," continued the Doctor. "I could have stood the mental strain if it had not been for bodily excesses, or vice versa, but the two together—a hospital and a harem to attend to at the same time—that was too much; I couldn't stand the racket."

"Let's have the hospital first," said Raleigh.

"I engaged in hospital practice," replied the other, "because it is infinitely the best method of acquiring experience, and it brought me into contact with many of the leaders of the profession, but the work was exceedingly trying and heavy. I was constantly up at night, and exposed to all weathers. Then I got mixed up with some rollicking fellows who carried on at a great rate. Not that I was ever given to habitual intemperance or to vulgar debauchery. It would be a mistake to suppose that I led a fast life; perhaps it would have been better for me if I had. I gave many hours every day to close study, my hospital duties were most severe and unremitting, and when I did give way occasionally to a fit of revelry, it was mostly through the violent reaction brought about by overwork. Fagged out and enervated, I would take a plunge into dissipation, if only to relieve the tension. Then, you know, when a man is taxing page 507his brain-power and nervous system to the utmost, any excesses of another sort tell upon him with vital effect; and I regret to say that I was involved at the time in several very engaging liaisons."

"What!" exclaimed the philosopher, "weren't you satisfied with one at a time?"

"My dear Dick, I am a creature of circumstances, a child of impulse," pleaded the other deprecatingly. "Never could I bring any of your philosophic caution to bear in arranging and regulating these tender affairs. How it came to pass—well, there, don't ask me. What could a fellow do? First there was the cook."

"Oh, Jemini!" cried Raleigh, "what a come-down. I should have thought that, with your refined sensibilities and poetical notions, you would have aimed higher than that."

"Mistake me not, friend," retorted Valentine; "there are cooks and cooks in the world. This was none of your vulgar, rubicund, flustering parties, with a shrill voice and a tendency to corpulence. Nothing of that sort. This was a neat and natty little piece, soft and plump, scrupulously clean, and with a most becoming air. When she discarded her apron and emerged from the kitchen she fluttered round you like a butterfly."

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"I never before," observed the philosopher laughingly, "heard of a butterfly that cooks. That is a union of the poetical with the practical which is rarely to be met with. The best she-cooks that I have known, even those of the most refined species, had as little of the butterfly in their composition as can well be imagined. If I might compare them to any winged insect, it would rather be to a red-hot dragon-fly."

"A more apt illustration, certainly," replied the Doctor; "but this one was in no respect fiery. She really was the housekeeper in charge of my lodgings, and never were my creature comforts better cared for."

"Did you seduce her?"

"I can conscientiously assert," said Doctor Valentine, with unusual earnestness, "that I never seduced any woman in my life, if by seduction you mean a deliberate and designing attempt to rob a woman of her virtue, or to lay a pitfall for unwary innocence."

"Then perhaps she seduced you?"

"Neither that. There was no seduction on either side. It came about by treacherous opportunity, and mutual—weakness, if you like. The little person was perhaps over-zealous in her kind attentions for my welfare, and I was betrayed in an unguarded moment. I often came home very late, and I begged page 509of her not to sit up for me; but she was not to be deterred from attending to my wants; I always found a bright fire, and some savoury preparation for supper awaiting me—a devilled kidney, a Welsh rare-bit, with a cup of hot tea or a glass of mulled port. She had a dainty hand for little delicacies, and there is no doubt about it, I was thoroughly spoilt. Could my heart fail to respond to such an amiable little caterer? One night, when I returned from a convivial party, very late and slightly elevated, I found her still at her post, notwithstanding my injunctions. I gave her a scolding; then, relenting of such harshness, I gave her a kiss to make amends. I quite expected a remonstrance, possibly a slap, instead of which she was taken worse, and sank into my arms. Now, it is all very well for you to preach, my boy, and to enunciate philosophical platitudes, but under such circumstances, tell me, what was a fellow to do?"

"Oh, get away with you !" exclaimed the other pettishly. "How the deuce should I know. I never was placed in such a critical position."

"Then inveigh not against frail humanity, and remember that the so-called merit or demerit which attaches to questions of conduct is mainly dependent on the intention that prompts and the opportunity that guides our actions, while the erring soul may page 510justly plead extenuating circumstances through temptation."

"The Lord have mercy upon us," remarked the philosopher. "I don't sit in judgment upon you, but rather say with Burns—

'Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us,
He knows each chord—its various tone,
Each spring—its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted,'"

"True for all men and for all time," remarked Valentine rather mournfully.

"But I say, old fellow, if, considering all the circumstances of the case, we pass over this peccadillo, what about the other one? I understood you to say that you had two strings to your bow, and played on both of them."

"Did I limit them to two?" answered the Doctor simply.

"Val! I blush for you. I will hear no more about your amours. I see it now; no wonder you broke down, when to other excesses you added the mal-de-harem."

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"In sober earnestness," replied the Doctor, "I believe that had much to do with it."

"Your sin has found you out," remarked the other compassionately; "but whatever your misconduct may have been, how terribly you have suffered for it. Yet what I cannot understand is that, being a physician yourself, and living among physicians, you should not have discovered the insidious advances of your complaint sooner, and have been better able to guard against it."

"It does seem strange," said Valentine, "that none of my friends should have noticed my state of health, especially as I had been coughing for some time previously. It never occurred to me that my chest could be seriously affected. There had never been a trace of consumption in our family, and I scouted the idea of any such thing."

"How did you first discover your condition, then?"

"I had been gradually getting worse, and felt much weaker than formerly, but I never would give in, and kept up the same killing pace. One day, as I was assisting an eminent surgeon, with whom I was very intimate, over some difficult operation, he suddenly exclaimed, 'Val, my boy, I don't like the sound of that cough of yours. When we have finished this page 512job you had better let me examine you.' He sounded me, and I saw by his face that the matter was serious. He then took me aside, and informed me that if I remained in town through the winter I had not three months to live. 'Your only chance,' he said, 'is to start off immediately on a sea voyage to some warmer clime.' I was dreadfully staggered. It was a death sentence striking me in the full exuberance of an ardent and joyous life. For the moment I could hardly realise the terrible disclosure, but any further doubt on that head was soon put at rest. I said that I would bow to the inevitable, and make all necessary arrangements to give up my practice, and would leave England before the end of the month. 'It would, be useless then,' said my distinguished friend. 'Well, next week then,' I said. 'No, not next week, but this week,' he said. 'Start to-morrow, for you haven't an hour to lose.' I went home to my lodgings, and like Hezekiah, I turned my face to the wall and wept. Then I packed up a few things that I could lay my hands on, and the next day I left the shores of Old England—left them, I fear, for ever, unless I may be permitted to return just to lay my bones there."

"Dear Val," cried Raleigh, with ill-concealed emotion, as he sought his friend's hand and pressed it, "like Hezekiah you have been respited. You know page 513what a marked improvement there has been in your health"——

"At first there was"——ejaculated the Doctor.

"Yes, and even now—why, if you only take ordinary care of yourself, you may live to be an old man yet."

The Doctor shook his head; "I hope to linger on yet a little while," he said, "but as to recovery"——

"Nonsense, man! You mustn't shake your head in that hopeless way; I won't allow it. You are only thirty, with the best part of your life before you. There, don't smile so sadly at me; I know what I am saying. You have plenty of constitution left, and boundless pluck, which makes up for a lot more. I consider we have both excellent prospects here, and I have made up my mind that we shall enjoy them together. Think of all the plans you have proposed, and your cherished wish"——

"My dear Dick," said Valentine, as he turned his face away, but retained a tender grasp of his friend's hand, "I have but one wish left now—to cease coughing."