Each long hour was counted, and “He suffers” was the burthen of all her thoughts.  She abstained from food; she lay on the bare earth, and, by such mimickry of his enforced torments, endeavoured to hold communion with his distant pain.  I remembered in one of her harshest moments a quotation of mine had roused her to anger and disdain.  “Perdita,” I had said, “some day you will discover that you have done wrong in again casting Raymond on the thorns of life.  When disappointment has sullied his beauty, when a soldier’s hardships have bent his manly form, and loneliness made even triumph bitter to him, then you will repent; and regret for the irreparable change

  “will move
  In hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love."[1]

The stinging “remorse of love” now pierced her heart.  She accused herself of his journey to Greece—­his dangers—­his imprisonment.  She pictured to herself the anguish of his solitude; she remembered with what eager delight he had in former days made her the partner of his joyful hopes—­ with what grateful affection he received her sympathy in his cares.  She called to mind how often he had declared that solitude was to him the greatest of all evils, and how death itself was to him more full of fear and pain when he pictured to himself a lonely grave.  “My best girl,” he had said, “relieves me from these phantasies.  United to her, cherished in her dear heart, never again shall I know the misery of finding myself alone.  Even if I die before you, my Perdita, treasure up my ashes till yours may mingle with mine.  It is a foolish sentiment for one who is not a materialist, yet, methinks, even in that dark cell, I may feel that my inanimate dust mingles with yours, and thus have a companion in decay.”  In her resentful mood, these expressions had been remembered with acrimony and disdain; they visited her in her softened hour, taking sleep from her eyes, all hope of rest from her uneasy mind.

Two months passed thus, when at last we obtained a promise of Raymond’s release.  Confinement and hardship had undermined his health; the Turks feared an accomplishment of the threats of the English government, if he died under their hands; they looked upon his recovery as impossible; they delivered him up as a dying man, willingly making over to us the rites of burial.

He came by sea from Constantinople to Athens.  The wind, favourable to him, blew so strongly in shore, that we were unable, as we had at first intended, to meet him on his watery road.  The watchtower of Athens was besieged by inquirers, each sail eagerly looked out for; till on the first of May the gallant frigate bore in sight, freighted with treasure more invaluable than the wealth which, piloted from Mexico, the vexed Pacific swallowed, or that was conveyed over its tranquil bosom to enrich the crown of Spain.  At early dawn the vessel was discovered bearing in shore; it was conjectured that it would cast anchor about five miles from land.  The news spread through