a very troublesome question to
know what he was to do. Where was he to go? Should he loiter about
the Continent as he once proposed? But then, he was under obligations
to this devoted woman, who had done so much for him. What was he to
do with regard to her? Could he send her home coldly, without a word
of gratitude, or without one sign expressive of that thankfulness
which any human being would feel under such circumstances? He could
not do that. He must do or say something expressive of his sense of
obligation. To do otherwise--to leave her abruptly--would be brutal.
What could he do? He could not go back and live with her at
Chetwynde. There was another, whose image filled all his heart, and
the memory of whose looks and words made all other things
unattractive. Had it not been for this, he must have yielded to pity,
if not to love. Had it not been for this, he would have spoken tender
words to that slender, white-faced woman who, with her imploring
eyes, hovered about him, finding her highest happiness in being his
slave, seeking her only recompense in some kindly look, or some
encouraging word.

All the circumstances of his present position perplexed him. He knew
not what to do; and, in this perplexity, his mind at length settled
upon India as the shortest way of solving all difficulties. He could
go back there again, and resume his old duties. Time might alleviate
his grief over his father, and perhaps it might even mitigate the
fervor of that fatal passion which had arisen in his heart for
another who could never be his. There, at any rate, he would have
sufficient occupation to take up his thoughts, and break up that
constant tendency which he now had toward memories of the one whom he
had lost. Amidst all his perplexity, therefore, the only thing left
for him seemed to be India.

The time was approaching when he would be able to travel once more.
Lausanne is the most beautiful place in the world, on the shore of
the most beautiful of lakes, with the stupendous forms of the Jura
Alps before it; but even so beautiful a place as this loses all its
charms to the one who has been an invalid there, and the eye which
has gazed upon the most sublime scenes in nature from a sick-bed
loses all power of admiring their sublimity. And so Lord Chetwynde
wearied of Lausanne, and the Luke of Geneva, and the Jura Alps, and,
in his restlessness, he longed for other scenes which might be
fresher, and not connected with such m