Falkner had parted with his dear adopted child under a strong excitement of fear concerning her health. The change of air and scene restored her so speedily, that his anxieties were of short duration. He was, however, in no hurry to rejoin her, as he was taught to consider a temporary separation from him as important to her convalescence. For the first time, after many years, Falkner was alone. True, he was so in Greece; but there he had an object. In Greece, also, it is true that he had dwelt on the past, writing even a narrative of his actions, and that remorse sat heavy at his heart, while he pursued this task. Yet he went to Greece to assist in a glorious cause, and to redeem his name from the obloquy his confession would throw on it, by his gallantry and death. There was something animating in these reflections. Then also disease had not attacked him, nor pain made him its prey--his sensations were healthful--and if his reflections were melancholy and self-condemning, yet they were attended by grandeur, and even by sublimity, the result of the danger that surrounded him, and the courage with which he met it. Now he was left alone--broken in health--dashed in spirit; consenting to live--wishing to live for Elizabeth's sake--yet haunted still by one pale ghost, and the knowledge that his bosom contained a secret which, if divulged, would acquire for him universal detestation. He did not fear discovery; but little do they know the human heart who are not aware of the throes of shame and anguish that attend the knowledge that we are in reality a cheat, that we disguise our own real selves, and that truth is our worst enemy. Left to himself, Falkner thought of these things with bitterness; he loathed the burden that sat upon his soul; he longed to cast it off; yet, when he thought of Elizabeth; her devoted affection and earnest entreaties, he was again a coward; how could he consent to give her up, and plant a dagger in her heart! There was but one cure to the irritation that his spirit endured, which was--to take refuge in her society; and he was about to join her, when a letter came, speaking of Gerard Neville--the same wild boy they had seen at Baden--the kind friend of Marseilles, still melancholy, still stricken by adversity; but endowed with a thousand qualities to attract love and admiration: full of sentiment and poetry--kind and tender as woman--resolute and independent as a man. Elizabeth said little, remembering Falkner's previous restriction upon his name--but she considered it her duty to mention him to her benefactor; and that being her duty to him, it became another to her new friend to assert his excellence, lest by some chance Falkner had mistaken, and attributed qualities that did not belong to him.