--Max here crept down into the berth to look for me--and I returned with him and left him resting comfortably on the quarter-deck, promising not to stir for a whole hour. I have to take care of him still; but, as I told him, the sea winds are bringing; some of its natural brownness back to his dear old face:--and I shall not consider him "interesting" any more. During the three months that Max was in prison, I never saw him. Indeed, we never once met from the day we said good-bye in my father's presence, till the day that----But I will continue my story systematically. All those three months Max was ill; not dangerously--for he said so, and I could believe him. It would have gone very hard with me if I could not have relied on him in this, as in everything. Nevertheless, it was a bitter time, and now I almost wonder how I bore it. Now, when I am ready and willing for everything, except the one thing, which, thank God, I shall never have to bear again--separation. The day before he came out of prison, Max wrote to me a long and serious letter. Hitherto, both our letters had been filled up with trivialities, such as might amuse him and cheer me, we deferred all plans till he was better. My private thoughts, if I had any, were not clear even to myself, until Max's letter. It was a very sad letter. Three months' confinement in one cell, with one hour's daily walk round a circle in a walled yard--prisoner's labour, for he took to making mats, saying it amused him; prisoner's rules and fare--no wonder that towards the end even his brave heart gave way. He broke down utterly. Otherwise he never would have written to me as he did--bidding me farewell, _me!_ At first I was startled and shocked; then I laid down the letter and smiled--a very sad sort of smile of course, but still it was a smile. The idea that Max and I could part, or desire to do so, under any human circumstances, seemed one of those amusingly impossible things that one would never stop to argue in the least, either with one's self or any other person. That we loved one another, and therefore some day should probably be married, but that anyhow we belonged to one another till death, were facts at once as simple, natural, and immutable, as that the sun stood in the heavens or that the grass was green. I wrote back to Max that night. Not that I did it in any hurry, or impulse of sudden feeling. I took many hours to consider both what I should say, and in what form I should put it. Also, I had doubts whether it would not be best for him, if he accepted the generous offer of Mr. Thorley's son-in-law, made with full knowledge of all circumstances, to go first to America alone. But, think how I would, my thoughts all returned and settled in the same track, in which was written one clear truth; that after God and the right--which means all claims of justice and conscience--the first duty of any two who love truly is towards one another.