for ever? Ah, did I in truth believe that
our separation had been final? Or did I harbour, perhaps against
reason and conviction, a hope, a thought of future reconciliation, a
shadowy yet not weak belief that all might yet end happily, and that
fortune still might favour love! With such faint hope, and such
belief, I must have bribed myself to silence, for I left my couch
resolved to keep my secret close. Doctor Mayhew was deep in the
contemplation of a map when I joined him at the breakfast-table. He
did not take his eyes from it when I entered the apartment, and he
continued his investigations some time after I had taken my seat. He
raised his head at last, and looked hard at me, apparently without
perceiving me, and then he resumed his occupation without having
spoken a syllable: after a further study of five or ten minutes, he
shook his head, and pressed his lips, and frowned, and stroked his
chin, as though he was just arriving at the borders of a notable and
great discovery. "It will be strange indeed!" he muttered to himself.
"How can we find it out?"

I did not break the thread of cogitation.

"Well," continued Doctor Maybew, "he must leave this house, at
all events. I will run the risk of losing him no longer. I will
write this morning to the overseer. Yet I _should_ like to
know--really--it may be, after all, the case. Stukely, lad, look here.
What county is this?" he continued, placing his finger on the map.

Somerset was written in the corner of it, and accordingly I answered.

"Very well," replied the doctor. "Now, look here. Read this. What do
these letters spell?"

He pointed to some small characters, which formed evidently the name
of a village that stood upon the banks of a river of some magnitude.
I spelt them as he desired, and pronounced, certainly to my own
surprise, the word--"_Belton_."

"Just so. Well, what do you say to that? I think I have hit it.
That's the fellow's home. I never thought of that before, and I
shouldn't now, if I hadn't had occasion for the road-book. It was
the first thing that caught my eye. Now--how can we find it out?"

"It is difficult!" said I.

"It is likely enough, you see. What should bring him so far westward,
if he hadn't some object? He was either wandering from or to his home,
depend upon it, when the gypsies found him. If Belton be his home,
his frequent repetition of the word was natural enough. Eh, don't
you see it?"

"Certainly," said I.

"Very w