The Two Destinies

a boy of thirteen. You now s

terval between these two ages,

e had been a year in America, the total collapse of his land speculation was followed by his death. The catastrophe was complete.

s, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave. But there were reasons which inclined u

at Mr. Germaine had been an unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the days when they were young people together. He was still a bachelor at the later period when his eldest brother's death without issue placed him in possession of a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth

ica. There was another - in which I was especially interested

that some among his many friends in Suffolk might have discovered traces of him, in the year that had passed since I had left England. In my dreams of Mary - and I dreamed of her constantly - the lake and its woody banks for

's request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting the home

m which Mary's flag had never fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes from the boat; it hurt me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me to a promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we had knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole through which "Trim," the terrier, had shown himself to rouse the s

anks brought me round to the cotta

suffered enough already; I made my inquiries, standing on the doorstep. They were soon at an end. The w

and still, go where I might, the answer to my questions was the same. Nobody knew anything of Dermody. Everybody asked if I had not brought news of him myself. It pains me even now to recall the cruelly complete

. I saw Mary - as Dame Dermody s

r on which her grandmother had written our prayers for us. We prayed together again, and sung hymns together again, as if the old times had come back. Once she appeared to me, with tears in her eyes, and s

n long in our new abode, an unexpected change in our prospects took place. To my mother's ast

th poor. No return to the feelings associated with that time is possible now. At my age, all I ask of you is to be the companion of the closing years of my life, and to give me som

of worth and honor, who had been throughout his whole life devoted to her; and she would recover the comfort, the luxury, the social prosperity and position of which my father's reckless course of life had deprived her. Add to this, that I liked Mr.

, my good mother congratulated herself (in this

l the perilous time which comes in every man's life came in mine. I reached the age when the stro

is true, were still devoted to the tasks set me by my tutor; but my nights were given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, which (in my present frame of mind) I look back on with disgust and dismay. I profaned my remembrances of Mary

e, when penitent thoughts mostly come to us; but I ceased absolutely to see her in my dreams. We were now, in the comp

. In some degree at least I restrained myself: I made the effort to return to purer ways of life. Mr. Germaine, though I had disappointed him, was too just a man to g

y adopting the profession to which he had been himself attached before he inherited his fortune

ted the views of a materialist companion of my studies - a worn-out man of more than double my age. I believed in nothing but what I could see, or taste, or feel. I lost all faith in humanity. With the one exception of my mother, I had no respect for women. My remembrances of Mary deteriorated until they became little more than a lost link of association with the past. I still preserved the green flag a

twenty-one years old; and of the illusi

neasy about me. After anxious consideration, my step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that the one chance

dia, was to be accompanied to the prince's court by an escort, including the military as well as the civil servants of the crown. The surgeon appointed to sail with the expedition from England was an old friend of Mr. Germaine's, and was in want of an assistant on whose capacity

set before me. When she did at length give way, she yielded most unwillingly. I confes

rt of the history of British India.

destination. We were encamped outside the city; and an attack was made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanatical natives. The attempt was defeated with little

n spear had been poisoned. I escaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through some peculiarity in the actio

ut again. Twice this happened; and the medical men agreed that the best course to take would be to send me home. They calculated on the invigor

channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, of heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England, bequeathed an income for life to my mot

y mother and I were r

existing mortals; promoted to the position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a house in London and of a cou

Ma

had now passed over, w

ead the few pages that fol

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