that she was stupidly submissive, and would remain so to the end of the chapter.  Not a bit of it.  She has insisted on my being formally dismissed, and her father intimates that in case of non-compliance she threatens him with an attack of brain fever.  Mr. Vernor condoles with me handsomely, and lets me know that the young lady’s attitude has been a great shock to his nerves.  He adds that he will not aggravate such regret as I may do him the honour to entertain, by any allusions to his daughter’s charms and to the magnitude of my loss, and he concludes with the hope that, for the comfort of all concerned, I may already have amused my fancy with other ‘views.’  He reminds me in a postscript that, in spite of this painful occurrence, the son of his most valued friend will always be a welcome visitor at his house.  I am free, he observes; I have my life before me; he recommends an extensive course of travel.  Should my wanderings lead me to the East, he hopes that no false embarrassment will deter me from presenting myself at Smyrna.  He can promise me at least a friendly reception.  It’s a very polite letter.”

Polite as the letter was, Pickering seemed to find no great exhilaration in having this famous burden so handsomely lifted from his spirit.  He began to brood over his liberation in a manner which you might have deemed proper to a renewed sense of bondage.  “Bad news,” he had called his letter originally; and yet, now that its contents proved to be in flat contradiction to his foreboding, there was no impulsive voice to reverse the formula and declare the news was good.  The wings of impulse in the poor fellow had of late been terribly clipped.  It was an obvious reflection, of course, that if he had not been so stiffly certain of the matter a month before, and had gone through the form of breaking Mr. Vernor’s seal, he might have escaped the purgatory of Madame Blumenthal’s sub-acid blandishments.  But I left him to moralise in private; I had no desire, as the phrase is, to rub it in.  My thoughts, moreover, were following another train; I was saying to myself that if to those gentle graces of which her young visage had offered to my fancy the blooming promise, Miss Vernor added in this striking measure the capacity for magnanimous action, the amendment to my friend’s career had been less happy than the rough draught.  Presently, turning about, I saw him looking at the young lady’s photograph.  “Of course, now,” he said, “I have no right to keep it!” And before I could ask for another glimpse of it, he had thrust it into the fire.

“I am sorry to be saying it just now,” I observed after a while, “but I shouldn’t wonder if Miss Vernor were a charming creature.”

“Go and find out,” he answered, gloomily.  “The coast is clear.  My part is to forget her,” he presently added.  “It ought not to be hard.  But don’t you think,” he went on suddenly, “that for a poor fellow who asked nothing of fortune but leave to sit down in a quiet corner, it has been rather a cruel pushing about?”