CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

IN EXILE.

I left Guernsey the day before my father and Julia returned from Jersey.

My immediate future was not as black as it might have been.  I was going direct to the house of my friend Jack Senior, who had been my chum both at Elizabeth College and at Guy’s.  He, like myself, had been hitherto a sort of partner to his father, the well-known physician, Dr. Senior of Brook Street.  They lived together in a highly-respectable but gloomy residence, kept bachelor fashion, for they had no woman-kind at all belonging to them.  The father and son lived a good deal apart, though they were deeply attached to one another.  Jack had his own apartments, and his own guests, in the spacious house, and Dr. Senior had his.

The first night, as Jack and I sat up together in the long summer twilight, till the dim, not really dark, midnight came over us, I told him every thing; as one tells a friend a hundred things one cannot put into words to any person who dwells under the same roof, and is witness of every circumstance of one’s career.

As I was talking to him, every emotion and perception of my brain, which had been in a wild state of confusion and conflict, appeared to fall into its proper rank.  I was no longer doubtful as to whether I had been the fool my father called me.  My love for Olivia acquired force and decision.  My judgment that it would have been a folly and a crime to marry Julia became confirmed.

“Old fellow,” said Jack, when I had finished, “you are in no end of a mess.”

“Well, I am,” I admitted; “but what am I to do?”

“First of all, how much money have you?” he asked.

“I’d rather not say,” I answered.

“Come, old friend,” he said, in his most persuasive tones, “have you fifty pounds in hand?”

“No,” I replied.

“Thirty?”

I shook my head, but I would not answer him further.

“That’s bad!” he said; “but it might be worse.  I’ve lots of tin, and we always went shares.”

“I must look out for something to do to-morrow,” I remarked.

“Ay, yes!” he answered, dryly; “you might go as assistant to a parish doctor, or get a berth on board an emigrant-ship.  There are lots of chances for a young fellow.”

He sat smoking his cigar—­a dusky outline of a human figure, with a bright speck of red about the centre of the face.  For a few minutes he was lost in thought.

“I tell you what,” he said, “I’ve a good mind to marry Julia myself.  I’ve always liked her, and we want a woman in the house.  That would put things straighter, wouldn’t it?”

“She would never consent to leave Guernsey,” I answered, laughing.  “That was one reason why she was so glad to marry me.”

“Well, then,” he said, “would you mind me having Olivia?”

“Don’t jest about such a thing,” I replied; “it is too serious a question with me.”