cares for me;
she has told me so herself, and even asked me not to leave them! I
explained to her that I had given you not only a promise, but a pledge,
that, unless you released me, I was bound in honor to accompany you. She
said, 'Will you leave this part of the matter to _me?_' and I answered,
'No, I'll go frankly to him, and say, "I'm going to break my word
with you: I have to choose between May Leslie and you, and I vote for
her."'"

"What a deal of self-sacrifice it might have saved you, Charley," said
he, laughing, "had you seen this telegram which came when I had sat
down to breakfast." It came from the Horse Guards, sent by some private
friend of Agincourt' s, and was in these words: "The row is over, no
more drafts for India, do not go."

Heathcote read and re-read the paper for several minutes. "So, then,
for once I have luck on my side. My resolve neither wounds a friend nor
hurts my own self-esteem. Of course _you_ 'll not go?"

"Certainly not I 'll not go out to hunt the lame ducks that others have
wounded."

"You 'll let me take this and show it to my father," said Heathcote. "He
shall learn the real reason of my stay hereafter, but for the present
this will serve to make him happy; and poor May, too, will be spared the
pain of thinking that in yielding to her wish I have jeopardized a true
friendship. I can scarcely believe all this happiness real, Agincourt.
After so long a turn of gloom and despondency, I cannot trust myself to
think that fortune means so kindly by me. Were it not for one unhappy
thought,--one only,--I could say I have nothing left to wish for."

"And what is that?--Is it anything in which I can be of service to you?"

"No, my dear fellow; if it were, I'd never have said it was a cause for
sorrow. It is a case, however, equally removed from your help as from
mine. I told you some time back that my father, yielding to a game
of cleverly played intrigue, had determined to marry this widow, Mrs.
Penthony Morris, whom you remember. So long as the question was merely
mooted in gossip, I could not allude to it; but when he wrote himself to
me on the subject, I remonstrated with him as temperately as I was able.
I adverted to their disproportion of age, their dissimilarity of habits;
and, lastly, I spoke out and told him that we knew nothing, any of
us, of this lady, her family, friends, or connections; that though I had
inquired widely, I never met the man who could give me any informa