about in a questioning way; the world of reality seemed dim and strange to him after the vivid phantasmagoria of his long delirium.

"Is there no parade to-day? I feel as if I had been asleep for an age."

"You've been very ill, but you're all right now, Bertrand; only you must be very quiet. Don't speak, but try to sleep."

"Very ill! yes, yes-why, I can't even lift my hand! I declare I can't move! How odd it is! Turn me away from the light, please; I'll go to sleep again, if you're quite certain there's no parade."

"Not an atom of a parade."

And Pigott turned him, and he slept long and deep, and woke the next time stronger, and quite comprehending that he had been dangerously ill, though he said nothing, as yet, of the cause. And so he passed through the first stages of his recovery, sleeping much, and lying silent when awake scarcely speaking, indeed, except to express a want querulously enough, as the wont of convalescents is. And Pigott still stuck to his post, and nursed him zealously through this most trying period to nurses, displaying a gentleness and consideration truly wonderful, but which

would have been still more astonishing in a professed philanthropist, perhaps.

And so the weeks rolled on, and Bertrand still continued silent on the subject of his love-catastrophe, which to his friend appeared a satisfactory symptom. "It shows, at any rate, that the thing's at an end," he would say to himself; "if it hadn't been, he would never have kept off the subject so long. It's a great comfort-it was a horrid bad business. The girl is as hollow as a drum, and her governor a snob compared with our big-drummer. It's a blessing it's at an end; but I wish I saw the old boy a little cheerier. That will come in time, though. He must have change of air and scene, and all that sort of thing, as soon as he can be moved." The doctor quite fell in with this latter view, and by-and-by Bertrand got a couple of months' sick-leave, and went down to Bournemouth accompanied by his faithful friend.

"It is my own case, you see," Pigott explained, as if apologising for his devotion; "and I'm not going to let him out of my hands till he'll do me credit."

54

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE spring was well advanced, the season was an early one, and the weather was glorious as summer; and in such circumstances, Bournemouth is a charming place to those who come, as Bertrand did, to drink in health and vigour from its pure but genial air. The woods, where, among the much-prevailing pines, their monotony was relieved by less sombre trees, were beginning to wrap themselves in that wonderful soft green mist-if one may so express it when the foliage is just being wooed from the bud by spring's caresses; and everywhere the primrose ran riot, and, mingling with early wild-flowers of other hues, lettered spring's advent gloriously in grove and lane, on slope and meadow; and the sun shone constantly, and the sky was clear and blue, and the sea, reflecting all, lay sleeping underneath the sunny cliffs, peaceful and motion

less for days. It was a delicious time for all men, but for an invalid the days came "with healing on their wings," and Bertrand regained his strength rapidly. He and Pigott were established in quarters on the eastern cliff; and they could not have been better placed, for the aspect was southern, and the sea lay at their feet. On one hand they looked upon the Isle of Wight, with its constant strange transformations of light and shade wrought by the sea-mists and the sun; and on the other to the graceful outlines of the Dorsetshire coast, sweeping round to form the western enclosure of the bay. But it was to the sea Bertrand constantly looked; the contemplation of its vastness and calm soothed his lacerated spirit, and, gazing at the far-away sea-horizon, he drank in unconsciously that indefinable sense of promise and hope which it always suggests. It was very good for him to be there; the companionship of the sea was very good for him. Pigott was indeed a little disappointed to find that his abstraction did not abate very much, and that his efforts to divert his mind to what was going on about him, or to amuse him with everyday subjects, continued to be but very partially successful; yet the return of health

and strength, the pure air, and "the lessons of the sea," were surely, if slowly, doing their work. Never, indeed, might the elastic joyousness of youth before its first check return to him—never again the same simplicity of faith—never again those early dreams of the heart that make a fairy-land of life. But all these things go necessarily in the tear and wear of the world; it is only a matter of time-simply a question between a sudden lopping off and a gradual process of grinding away with a file. The end of our hird decade sees the last of them, one way or other. And as for the permanent effects of lovedisappointments beyond this limit, does any one now believe in them? Does any one believe that any nature not afflicted with some grave moral or intellectual flaw, will have its capacity for work, usefulness, sympathy, and even enjoyment, paralysed for ever by any such agency?

Not very long ago it would have been held a kind of blasphemy against "the higher sensibilities" to hold such language. A few generations back it was quite a venial offence to be useless, worthless, or at least disagreeable, for the remainder of your days, if you had only been disappointed in love it was expected of you, indeed,