d him the climate
would cure him of all his ailments, without need of a physician, and
persuaded him to make the journey at last. The doctor heard of it first
by a note written by his intended father-in-law. It contained no
request nor encouragement to accompany them--of course, the daughter was
to go too; her father wouldn't separate from her. But the doctor's
friend had not trusted only to that: he knew that the other's resolution
never to leave his country was not likely to be broken, so he was quite
secure."

"And the doctor knew nothing of how his friend was cheating him?"

"No, not then. Far from it; he showed him the letter, and asked him for
advice. He never dreamed of doubting his constancy, either to himself or
to the girl he was engaged to marry. His friend counseled him to write a
letter to her he meant to make his wife, explaining his position, and
asking her not to leave him. He would carry it to her, and advocate it
himself, he said, and do all in his power to influence the father. The
young doctor didn't altogether relish this course, nevertheless he
trusted in his friend, wrote the letter, and gave it into his hands.

"He never saw his friend after that day. The next morning came an answer
from the young lady--a cruel and cold rejection of him--repudiation of
his love, and a doubt of his honor. It bewildered him, and, for a time,
crushed him. Long afterward, he found out that she had never seen the
letter he wrote, but a very different one, of his friend's concoction.

"Very soon afterward, they were gone--all three! and, before a year was
passed, he heard that his friend and the daughter were married, and the
father died of a fever contracted in Spain.

"He tried to go on as usual for several months, but it was no use. At
last, he left his practice, and all his connections, and wandered over
the United States--through towns and wildernesses. He rode across the
plains on a mustang; clambered through the gorges of the Rocky
Mountains; saw the tide come in through the Golden Gate at San
Francisco. He pushed north as far as Canada, and thence came down the
Mississippi to New Orleans. From there he crossed to the Pacific coast
again, and lived to find himself a second time in San Francisco. He
didn't stay there long, but struck overland, slanting southward, and, in
four or five months, appeared at Charleston, South Carolina. So he
worked up the Atlantic coast to New York. By the time he got there, he
w