life was an impression that he had
a disease of the chest, some subtle and mysterious affection which had
defied the doctors, and would go on to defy them to the last. He had
been dangerously wounded in the Burmese war, and attributed the origin
of his malady to this cause. Others there were who said that the want of
recognition to his services in that campaign was the direst of all the
injuries he had received. And true it was, a most brilliant career had
met with neither honors nor advancement, and Upton left the service in
disgust, carrying away with him only the lingering sufferings of his
wound. To suggest to him that his malady had any affinity to any known
affection was to outrage him, since the mere supposition would reduce
him to a species of equality with some one else,--a thought infinitely
worse than any mere physical suffering; and, indeed, to avoid this
shocking possibility, he vacillated as to the locality of his disorder,
making it now in the lung, now in the heart, at one time in the
bronchial tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It was his
pleasure to consult for this complaint every great physician of Europe,
and not alone consult, but commit himself to their direction, and this
with a credulity which he could scarcely have summoned in any other
cause.

It was difficult to say how far he himself believed in this
disorder,--the pressure of any momentous event, the necessity of action,
never finding him unequal to any effort, no matter how onerous. Give him
a difficulty,--a minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, a false
move to profit by,--and he rose above all his pulmonary symptoms, and
could exert himself with a degree of power and perseverance that very
few men could equal, none surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept
this malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a novel or
a newspaper, but would never permit it to interfere with the graver
business of life.

We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description; but we have felt it
the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since the studious simplicity
which marked all his manner might have deceived our reader, and which
the impression of his mere words have failed to convey.

"You will be glad to hear Upton is in England, Glen-core," said
Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his seat in the library, "and,
what is more, intends to pay you a visit."

"Upton coming here!" exclaimed Glencore, with an expression of