and not likely to return. Where we are going, in Calcutta,
you will find friends and English customs; and your faithful servant,
if you will have him as such, Athelstane Ford, will stand guard over
you with his life."

This was the nearest approach which I made to a declaration of my
love, choosing rather to drift by force of circumstances into the
position of Marian's accepted lover than hazard all I had gained by
seeking to pluck the fruit before it was ripe. It was sufficient for
me in the meantime to elicit from her those expressions of abhorrence
towards my cousin (and late rival), which assured me that she was
effectually cured of her unhappy tenderness for that villain.

"Thank heaven, you are not likely to be troubled with any further
sight of him," I said, to clinch the matter. "After these events
Master Rupert will be no such fool as to endanger his neck by
trespassing on the Company's territories."

"I wish never to see him, nor so much as to hear of him again," Marian
answered warmly.

With such assurances she satisfied me. Perhaps my hopes played me
false, and made me take gratitude for something dearer; or it may be
that Marian, who knew well enough what were my feelings towards her,
did return me some fondness at this time, and was resigned to accept
my suit. Even if I deceived myself, I will not repent it. For I know
that this life of ours is but a series of illusions, where we stand
like children at a peepshow in a fair, beholding pictures which we
mistake for real things. So that I say that he who falsely thinks
himself beloved is just as well off for that time as he who really is
beloved. Yet so far as I was concerned, if any man had said to me then
that Marian did not love me, I should have scorned him.

Of my love for her I must not speak at all, or I shall never have
done. Long before we reached the Hooghley she had recovered from the
ill effects of her imprisonment, and moved about the ship with that
command which her beauty gave to her. Her charm was such as I have
never seen in any other woman: compared with them she seemed like a
bright child among old, sleeping men, almost like a living body among
the withered tenants of the tombs. And before we had been upon our
voyage above a fortnight the commander and both lieutenants of the
_Thetis_ were at her beck and call, while as for the little
midshipmen, down to one youngster of twelve, they swore by her as if
she were a goddess, and fought d