er heroic children of an unworthy
father--with the prospect, at least to Mirah, of their stretching
onward through the solid part of life.

Meanwhile Lapidoth's presence had raised a new impalpable partition
between Deronda and Mirah--each of them dreading the soiling inferences
of his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve
and diffidence of the other. But it was not very long before some light
came to Deronda.

As soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the Abbey,
he had called at Hans Meyrick's rooms, feeling it, on more grounds than
one, a due of friendship that Hans should be at once acquainted with
the reasons of his late journey, and the changes of intention it had
brought about. Hans was not there; he was said to be in the country for
a few days; and Deronda, after leaving a note, waited a week, rather
expecting a note in return. But receiving no word, and fearing some
freak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible Hans, whose proposed
sojourn at the Abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a
second call, and was admitted into the painting-room, where he found
his friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat, his long hair still
wet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wizened--anything but
country-like. He had taken up his palette and brushes, and stood before
his easel when Deronda entered, but the equipment and attitude seemed
to have been got up on short notice.

As they shook hands, Deronda said, "You don't look much as if you had
been in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to?"

"No," said Hans, curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one
who has begun to feign by mistake; then pushing forward a chair for
Deronda, he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his
hands behind his head, while he went on, "I've been to
I-don't-know-where--No man's land--and a mortally unpleasant country it
is."

"You don't mean to say you have been drinking, Hans," said Deronda, who
had seated himself opposite, in anxious survey.

"Nothing so good. I've been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some
time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having
found myself just now rather out of other bliss, I thought it judicious
to seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a
cask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution."

"What has been the matter? You were in good spi