I understood your noble,
generous nature! It was but yesterday I was writing about you to a very
dear friend, who had asked me when the marriage was to take place, and
I said: 'If I have any skill in deciphering character, I should say,
Never. Charles Heathcote is not the man to live a pensioner on a wife's
rental; he is far more likely to take service again as a soldier, and
win a glorious name amongst those who are now reconquering India. His
daring spirit chafes against the inglorious idleness of his present
life, and I 'd not wonder any morning to see his place vacant at the
breakfast-table, and to hear he had sailed for Alexandria.'"

"You do me a fuller justice than many who have known me longer," said
he, pensively.

"Because I read you more carefully,--because I considered you without
any disturbing element of self-interest; and if I was now and then angry
at the lethargic indolence of your daily life, I used to correct myself
and say, 'Be patient; his time is coming; and when the hour has once
struck for him, he 'll dally no longer!'"

"And my poor father--"

"Say, rather, your proud father, for he is the man to appreciate your
noble resolution, and feel proud of his son."

"But to leave him--to desert him--"

"It is no eternal separation. In a year or two you will rejoin him,
never to part again. Take my word for it, the consciousness that his son
is accomplishing a high duty will be a strong fund of consolation for
absence. It is to mistake him to suppose that he could look on your
present life without deep regret."

"Ah! is that so?" cried he, with an expression of pain.

"He has never owned as much to me; but I have read it in him, just as I
have read in _you_ that you are not the man to stoop to an ignominious
position to purchase a life of ease and luxury."

"You were right there!" said he, warmly.

"Of course I was. I could not be mistaken."

"You shall not be, at all events," said he, hurriedly. "How cold your
hand is! Let us return to the house." And they walked back in silence to
the door.

CHAPTER XV. MRS. PENTHONY MORRIS AT HER WRITING-TABLE

It was late on that same night,--very late. The villa was all quiet and
noiseless as Mrs. Morris sat at her writing-table, engaged in a very
long letter. The epistle does not in any way enter into our story. It
was to her father, in reply to one she had just received from him, and
solely referred to little family details with which our rea