trong
motive for concealment; and now, with my improved knowledge of life, I
cannot, recalling all the past, but suppose that Riccabocca was not what
he appeared. Hence, I have hesitated on formally obtruding myself upon
his secrets, whatever they may be, and have rather watched for some
chance occasion to meet him in his walks."

"You did right, my dear Leonard; but my reasons for seeing my old friend
forbid all scruples of delicacy, and I will go at once to his house."

"You will tell me, my lord, if I am right."

"I hope to be allowed to do so. Pray, stay at home till I return. And
now, ere I go, one question more: You indulge conjectures as to
Riccabocca, because he has changed his name--why have you dropped your
own?"

"I wished to have no name," said Leonard, coloring, deeply, "but that
which I could make myself."

"Proud poet, this I can comprehend. But from what reason did you assume
the strange and fantastic name of Oran?"

The flush on Leonard's face became deeper.

"My lord," said he, in a low voice, "it is a childish fancy of mine; it
is an anagram."

"Ah!"

"At a time when my cravings after knowledge were likely much to mislead,
and perhaps undo me, I chanced on some poems that suddenly affected my
whole mind, and led me up into purer air; and I was told that these
poems were written in youth, by one who had beauty and genius--one who
was in her grave--a relation of my own, and her familiar name was
Nora--"

"Ah!" again ejaculated Lord L'Estrange, and his arm pressed heavily upon
Leonard's.

"So, somehow or other," continued the young author, falteringly, "I
wished that if ever I won to a poet's fame, it might be, to my own
heart, at least, associated with this name of Nora--with her whom death
had robbed of the fame that she might otherwise have won--with her
who--"

He paused, greatly agitated.

Harley was no less so. But as if by a sudden impulse, the soldier bent
down his manly head, and kissed the poet's brow; then he hastened to the
gate, flung himself on his horse, and rode away.

CHAPTER XVII.

Lord L'Estrange did not proceed at once to Riccabocca's house. He was
under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield
easily to the lukewarm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far; and
impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind
so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When
he once more, recalling his duty