s Jane Cardigan. But I liked her--I
liked my life with them. It was like breathing a higher air, the same
air that--Oh, Phineas, it was horrible to come back to my life here--to
that accursed tan-yard!"

I said nothing.

"You see, now"--and that hard laugh smote me to the heart again--"you
see, Phineas, how wicked I am growing. You will have to cut my
acquaintance presently."

"Tell me the rest--I mean, the rest of your life in London," I said,
after a pause. "Did you ever hear of her?"

"Of course not; though I knew she was there. I saw it in the Court
Circular. Fancy a lady, whose name was in the Court Circular, being
inquired after by a tanner's lad! But I wanted to look at her--any
beggar might do that, you know--so I watched in streets and parks, by
theatre-doors at night, and by church-doors on Sunday mornings; yet I
never saw her once. Only think, not once for five whole months."

"John, how could you tell me you were happy?"

"I don't know. Perhaps because of my pride; perhaps because--Ah, don't
look so wretched! Why did you let me say all this? You are too good
for such as I."

Of course I took no heed of idle words like these. I let him stand
there, leaning against the stile, now and then grasping it with his
nervous, muscular hands, as if he would tear it down; then I said
quietly:

"What do you intend to do?"

"Do? Nothing! What can I do? Though sometimes a score of wild plans
rush into my mind, such as to run away to the Indies, like that young
Warren Hastings we were talking of, come back twenty years hence a
nabob, and--marry her."

"Marry her," I repeated, mournfully.

"Ay, I could. That is what maddens me. If now she and I were to meet
and stand together, equal man and woman, I could make her love me; I
feel I could. Instead of crawling after her thus I would go boldly in
at those very gates--do you think she is there?"

He trembled, actually trembled, at the mere thought of her being so
near.

"Oh, it's hard, hard! I could despise myself. Why cannot I trust my
manhood, my honest manhood that I was born with, go straight to her and
tell her that I love her; that God meant her for me and me for
her--true husband and true wife? Phineas, mark my words"--and, wild as
his manner was, it had a certain force which sounded almost like
prophecy--"if ever Ursula March marries she will be my wife--MY wife!"

I could only murmur--"Heaven grant it!"

"But we shall never marr