ned
the boat. Even at this distance he recognized the once-adored form of
Isabel. She waved her hand to him, and across the still and shining air
came her voice, mournfully and sweetly in her native tongue, "Farewell,
Clarence--farewell, farewell."

He strove to answer, but the voice touched a chord at his heart, and the
words failed him. Isabel was then lost forever,--gone with this dread
stranger,--darkness was round her lot. And he himself had decided
her fate and his own! The boat bounded on, the soft waves flashed
and sparkled beneath the oars, and it was along one sapphire track
of moonlight that the frail vessel bore away the lovers. Farther and
farther from his gaze sped the boat, till at last the speck, scarcely
visible, touched the side of the ship that lay lifeless in the glorious
bay. At that instant, as if by magic, up sprang with a glad murmur the
playful and refreshing wind. And Glyndon turned to Mejnour, and broke
the silence.

"Tell me,--if thou canst read the future,--tell me that her lot will be
fair, and that her choice at least is wise."

"My pupil," answered Mejnour, in a voice the calmness of which well
accorded with the chilling words, "thy first task must be to withdraw
all thought, feeling, sympathy from others. The elementary stage of
knowledge is to make self, and self alone, thy study and thy world.
Thou bast decided thine own career; thou hast renounced love; thou hast
rejected wealth, fame, and the vulgar pomps of power. What, then,
are all mankind to thee? To perfect thy faculties and concentrate thy
emotions is henceforth thy only aim."

"And will happiness be the end?"

"If happiness exist," answered Mejnour, "it must be centred in A Self to
which all passion is unknown. But happiness is the last state of being,
and as yet thou art on the threshold of the first!"

As Mejnour spoke, the distant vessel spread its sails to the wind,
and moved slowly along the deep. Glyndon sighed, and the pupil and the
master retraced their steps towards the city.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

It was about a month after the date of Zicci's departure and Glyndon's
introduction to Mejnour, when two Englishmen were walking arm-in-arm
through the Toledo.

"I tell you," said one (who spoke warmly), "that if you have a particle
of common-sense left in you, you will accompany me to England. This
Mejnour is an impostor more dangerous--because more in earnest--than
Zicci. After all, what do his p