o words could express my astonishment. I could only stop, and look at
him.

"Was that the occupation which you had in view when you left England?" I
asked.

"I had no object in leaving England," he answered, "but the object which
I avowed to you. After what had happened, I owed it to Lucilla and I owed
it to Nugent to go. I left England without caring where I went. The train
to Lyons happened to be the first train that started on my arrival at
Paris. I took the first train. At Lyons, I saw by chance an account in a
French newspaper of the sufferings of some of the badly-wounded men, left
still uncured after the battle of Solferino. I felt an impulse, in my own
wretchedness, to help these other sufferers in _their_ misery. On every
other side of it, my life was wasted. The one worthy use to which I could
put it was to employ myself in doing good; and here was good to be done,
I managed to get the necessary letters of introduction at Turin. With the
help of these, I made myself of some use (under the regular surgeons and
dressers) in nursing the poor mutilated, crippled men; and I have helped
a little afterwards, from my own resources, in starting them comfortably
in new ways of life."

In those manly and simple words, he told me his story.

Once more I felt, what I had felt already, that there were hidden
reserves of strength in the character of this innocent young fellow,
which had utterly escaped my superficial observation of him. In choosing
his vocation, he was, no doubt, only following the conventional modern
course in such cases. Despair has its fashions, as well as dress. Ancient
despair (especially of Oscar's sort) used to turn soldier, or go into a
monastery. Modern despair turns nurse; binds up wounds, gives physic, and
gets cured or not in that useful but nasty way. Oscar had certainly
struck out nothing new for himself: he had only followed the fashion.
Still, it implied, as I thought, both courage and resolution to have
conquered the obstacles which he must have overcome, and to have held
steadily on his course after he had once entered it. Having begun by
quarreling with him, I was in a fair way to end by respecting him. Surely
this man was worth preserving for Lucilla, after all!

"May I ask where you were going, when we met at the port?" I continued.
"Have you left Italy because there were no more wounded soldiers to be
cured?"

"There was no more work for me at the hospital to which I was attached,