S ONLY ONE ENEMY, HE IS
LUCKY INDEED IF HE HAS NOT ONE TOO MANY.

A cold night; sharp frost; winter set in. The shutters are closed, the
curtains drawn, the fire burns clear, and the lights are softly shaded
in Alban Morley's drawing-room.

The old bachelor is at home again. He had returned that day; sent
to Lionel to come to him; and Lionel had already told him what had
transpired in his absence--from the identification of Waife with William
Losely, to Lady Montfort's visit to Fawley, which had taken place two
days before, and of which she had informed Lionel by a few hasty lines,
stating her inability to soften Mr. Darrell's objections to the alliance
between Lionel and Sophy; severely blaming herself that those objections
had not more forcibly presented themselves to her own mind, and
concluding with expressions of sympathy, and appeals to fortitude, in
which, however brief, the exquisite kindness of her nature so diffused
its charm, that the soft words soothed insensibly, like those sounds
which in Nature itself do soothe us we know not why.

The poor Colonel found himself in the midst of painful subjects. Though
he had no very keen sympathy for the sorrows of lovers, and no credulous
faith in everlasting attachments, Lionel's portraiture of the young
girl, who formed so mysterious a link between the two men who, in
varying ways, had touched the finest springs in his own heart, compelled
a compassionate and chivalrous interest, and he was deeply impressed by
the quiet of Lionel's dejection. The young man uttered no complaints of
the inflexibility with which Darrell had destroyed his elysium. He bowed
to the will with which it was in vain to argue, and which it would have
been a criminal ingratitude to defy. But his youth seemed withered up;
down-eyed and listless, he sank into that stupor of despondency which so
drearily simulates the calm of resignation.

"I have but one wish now," said he, "and that is to change at once into
some regiment on active service. I do not talk of courting danger
and seeking death. That would be either a senseless commonplace, or a
threat, as it were, to Heaven! But I need some vehemence of action--some
positive and irresistible call upon honour or duty that may force me
to contend against this strange heaviness that settles down on my whole
life. Therefore, I entreat you so to arrange for me, and break it to Mr.
Darrell in such terms as may not needlessly pain him by the obtrusion