“Not,” added he, hastily, “that I am to inflict you with a sick man’s company again. I only beg for leave to come out of a morning when I feel well enough. This inn here is very comfortable, and though I am glad to see Onofrio does not recognise me, he will soon learn my ways enough to suit me. Meanwhile, may I go back with you, or do you think you ought to prepare them for the visit of so formidable a personage?” “Oh, I think you may come at once,” said she, laughingly, but very far from feeling assured at the same time. “All the better. I have some baubles here that I want to deposit in more suitable hands than mine. You know that we irregulars had more looting than our comrades, and I believe that I was more fortunate in this way than many others.” As he spoke, he hastily opened and shut again several jewel-cases, but giving her time to glance-no more than glance--at the glittering objects they contained. “By-the-way,” said he, taking from one of them a costly brooch of pearls, “this is the sort of thing they fasten a shawl with,” and he gallantly placed it in her shawl as he spoke. “Oh, my dear Colonel Calvert!” “Pray do not call me colonel. I am Harry Calvert for you, just as I used to be. Besides, I wish for nothing that may remind me of my late life and all its terrible excitements. I am a soldier tired, very tired of war’s alarms, and very eager for peace in its best of all significations. Shall we go?” “By all means. I was only thinking that you must reconcile yourself not to return to-night, and rough it how best you can at the villa.” “Let me once see my portmanteau in the corner of my old green room, and my pipe where it used to hang beside my watch over the chimney, and I’ll not believe that I have passed the last two terrible years but in a dream. You could not fancy how I attach myself to that spot, but I’ll give you a proof. I have given orders to my agent to buy the villa. Yes; you’ll wake some fine morning and find me to be your landlord.” It was thus they talked away, rambling from one theme to the other, till they had gone a considerable way across the lake, when once more Calvert recurred to the strange circumstance that his name should never have come before them in any shape since his departure. “I ought to tell you,” said she, in some confusion, “that I once did make an effort to obtain tidings of you. I wrote to your cousin Miss Sophia.” “You wrote to her!” burst he in, sternly; “and what answer did you get?” “There it is,” said she, drawing forth the letter, and giving it to him. “‘No claim! no right!’ murmured he, as he re-read the lines; “‘the name of the person she had dared to inquire after;’ and you never suspected the secret of all this indignant anger?” “How could I? What was it?”