.'

'Don't you think, upon the whole,----. I don't like to interfere, but
upon my word the thing is so important.'

'You think I had better not see her?'

'I do.'

'And lie to her?'

'All is fair in love and war.'

'That means that no faith is due to a woman. I cannot live by such a
doctrine. I do not mind owning to you that I wish I could do as you bid
me. I can't. I cannot be so false. I must go, old fellow; but I know all
that you would say to me, and I will endeavour to escape honestly from
this trouble.' And so he went.

Yes;--to escape honestly from that trouble! But how? It is just that
trouble from which there is no honest escape,--unless a man may honestly
break his word. He had engaged himself to her so much that, simply to
ignore her would be cowardly as well as false. There was but one thing
that he could do, but one step that he could take, by which his security
and his self-respect might both be maintained. He would tell her the
exact truth, and put it to her whether, looking at their joint
circumstances, it would not be better that they should--part. Reflecting
on this during his three days' journey down to Sydney, it was thus that
he resolved,--forgetting altogether in his meditations the renewed force
of the woman's charms upon himself.

As he went from the railway station at Sydney to the third-class inn at
which he located himself, he saw the hoardings on all sides placarded
with the name of Mademoiselle Cettini. And there was a picture on some
of these placards of a wonderful female, without much clothes, which was
supposed to represent some tragic figure in a tableau. There was the
woman whom he was to make his wife. He had travelled all night, and had
intended to seek Mrs. Smith immediately after his breakfast. But so
unhappy was he, so much disgusted by the tragic figure in the picture,
that he postponed his visit and went after his luggage. His luggage was
all right in the warehouse, and he arranged that it should be sent down
to Nobble. Waggons with stores did make their way to Nobble from the
nearest railway station, and hopes were held out that the packages might
be there in six weeks' time. He would have been willing to postpone
their arrival for twelve months, for twenty-four months, could he, as
compensation have been enabled to postpone, with honour, his visit to
Mrs. Smith for the same time.

Soon after noon, however, his time was vacant, and he rushed to his
fate. She had sen