hristian name in initial only. Here I was, passionately in love with a
woman, and not knowing by what fond name to identify her in my thoughts!
"M. Van Brandt!" I might call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel,
Magdalen, Mary--no, not Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but
I owed some respect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early days
were still living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me as
this woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" to think
even of that heartless creature by her name. Why think of her at all?
Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means of tracing her in her
letter? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace a woman who had gone I
knew not whither, and who herself informed me that she meant to pass
under an assumed name. Had I lost all pride, all self-respect? In the
flower of my age, with a handsome fortune, with the world before me,
full of interesting female faces and charming female figures, what
course did it become me to take? To go back to my country-house, and
mope over the loss of a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or to
send for a courier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly among
foreign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper at that
moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my imagination.
I first astonished the people at the hotel by ordering all further
inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt to be stopped; and then I
opened my writing desk and wrote to tell my mother frankly and fully of
my new plans.

The answer arrived by return of post.

To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with only
formally approving of my new resolution. With an energy which I had
not ventured to expect from her, she had made all her arrangements for
leaving home, and had started for Edinburgh to join me as my traveling
companion. "You shall not go away alone, George," she wrote, "while I
have strength and spirits to keep you company."

In three days from the time when I read those words our preparations
were completed, and we were on our way to the Continent.

CHAPTER XIII. NOT CURED YET.

WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from England
nearly two years.

Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the image of
Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my mind?

No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of Dame
Dermody) taking