"You must understand what I mean. The affair has been productive of so much pain and annoyance to me, that I wish it could be ignored for ever." "Though it left me under a cloud," said Gerard. "You must pardon me, if I cannot agree with you. My constant hope is, that daylight may soon be let in upon it. I assure you I have specially mentioned it in my prayers." "Pray don't!" reproved Alice. "I'm sure I have cause to mention it, for it is sending me into exile. That, and other things." "It is the guilty only who flee, not the innocent," said Frances. "You don't mean what you say, Gerard." "Don't I! There's a certain boat advertised to steam from London Bridge Wharf tomorrow, wind and weather permitting, and it will steam me with it. I am compelled to fly my country." "Be serious, and say what you mean." "Seriously, then, I am over head and ears in debt. You know my uncle stopped my allowance in the spring, and sent me--metaphorically speaking--to the dogs. It got wind; ill news always does get wind; I had a few liabilities, and they have all come down upon me. But for this confounded bracelet affair, there's no doubt the colonel would have settled them, rather than let the name of Hope be dubiously bandied about by the public; he would have expended his ire in growls, and then gone and paid up. But that resource is over now; and I go to take up my abode in some renowned colony for desolate Home subjects, beyond the pale of British lock-ups. Boulogne, or Calais, or Dieppe, or Ostend; I don't know which of the four I shall stay in: and there I may be kept for years." Neither of the young ladies answered immediately. They saw the facts were difficult, and that Gerard was only making light of it before them. "How shall you live?" questioned Alice. "You must live there as well as here: you cannot starve." "I shall just escape the starving. I am possessed of a trifle: enough to keep me on potatoes and salt. Upon my word, it's little more. Perhaps I may get some writing to do for the newspapers? Don't you envy me my prospects?" "When do you suppose you may return?" inquired Lady Frances. "I ask it seriously, Gerard." "I know no more than you, Fanny. I have no expectations but from the colonel. Should he never relent, I am caged there for good." "And so you have ventured here to tell us this; and to bid us good-bye?" "No; I never thought of venturing here," was the candid answer: "how could I tell that the Bashaw would be at the opera? A shark set on me in the street, and I had to run for my life. Thomas happened to be conveniently at the open door, and I rushed in, and saved myself." "A shark!" exclaimed Alice, her inexperience taking the words literally--"a shark in the street!" Frances Chenevix laughed. "One with sharp eyes and nimble feet, Alice, speeding after me with a polite invitation from one of the law lords. He is watching outside now." "How shall you get away?" wondered Frances.