Here the _Disappointments of Dion_ lost its chief interest for Eustace Thorburn, for here the record of his mother’s hapless love ended. Beyond this, and to the very close, he had read the book carefully, weighing every sentence, for it was the epitome of his father’s character. In every line there was egotism, in every page the confession of energies and talents wasted in the pursuit of personal gratification. For ever and for ever, the weary wretch pursues the same worthless prize--the prize more difficult of attainment than the new world of a Columbus, or the new planet of a Herschel. With less pains a man might achieve a result that would be a lasting heritage for his fellow-men, and might die with the proud boast of Ulysses on his lips--“I am become a name!” Through fair and sunny Italy; in wild Norseland; in the granite and marble palaces of St. Petersburg; nay, beyond Caucasian mounts and valleys; amid the ruins of Persepolis; across the sandy wastes, and by the snow-clad mountains of Afghanistan; deep into the heart of Hindustan,--the worldling had pursued his phantom prey; and everywhere, in civilized city or in tiger-haunted jungle, the hunter after happiness found only disappointment. “A tiger-hunt is the dreariest thing imaginable,” he wrote; “it is all waiting and watching, and prowling and lurking behind bushes; a dastardly, sneaking business, which makes one feel more ignoble than the tiger. For genuine excitement the race for the Derby is better; and a man can enjoy a fever of expectation at Epsom which he cannot equal in Bengal.” And anon; “That most musical and meretricious of poets, Thomas Moore, has a great deal to answer for. I have been all through the East in search of his Light of the Harem, and have found only darkness, or the merest rushlights, the faintest twinkling tapers that ever glimmered through their brief span. And so I return disappointed from the Eastern world, to seek new disappointments in the West.” CHAPTER II. “STILL FROM ONE SORROW TO ANOTHER THROWN.” EUSTACE closed the book with a sigh--a sigh for the father he had never known, the father who had never known his birth; a sigh for the mother whose life had been sacrificed on so poor an altar. He had been reading for some hours with very little consciousness of the passage of time. “You seem to be interested in that book, Mr. Thorburn,” said a familiar voice from the bank above him. He started to his feet, dropped his book, turned, and looked up at the speaker. The voice was the voice of Harold Jerningham; and that gentleman was standing on the bank, pointing downward at the fallen book with the tip of his extended cane, as he might have pointed to some creature of the reptile tribe. “You startled me a little, Mr. Jerningham,” said Eustace, as he stooped to pick up the book.