A tracery of strange wild thought came over the countenance of Neville. "Do I remember?" he cried--"yes--and I remember a beautiful girl--and I thought such would have been my sister, and I had not been alone--if fate, if cruel, inexorable, horrible destiny had not deprived me of her as well as all--all that made my childish existence paradise. It is so--and I see you again, whom then my heart called sister--it is strange." "Did you give me that name?" said Elizabeth. "Ah, if you knew the strange ideas I then had of giving you my father for your friend, instead of one spoken harshly--perhaps unjustly of--" As she spoke he grew gloomy again--his eyes drooped, and the expression of his face became at first despondent, then proud, and even fierce; it reminded her more forcibly than it had ever done before of the boy of Baden--"It is better as it is," he continued, "much better that you do not share the evil that pursues me; you ought not to be humiliated, pressed down--goaded to hatred and contempt. "Farewell--I grieve to leave you--yet I feel deeply how it is for the best. Hereafter you will acknowledge your acquaintance with me, when we meet in a happier hour. God preserve you and your dear father, as he will for your sake! Twice we have met--the third time, if sibyls' tales are true, is the test of good or evil in our friendship--till then, farewell." Thus they parted. Had Elizabeth been free from care with regard to Falkner, she had regretted the separation more, and pondered more over the mysterious wretchedness that darkened the lives of the only two beings, the inner emotions of whose souls had been opened to her. As it was, she returned to watch and fear beside her father's couch--and scarcely to remember that a few minutes before she had been interested by another--so entirely were her feelings absorbed by her affection and solicitude for him. CHAPTER XIII From this time their homeward journey was more prosperous. They arrived safely at Lyons, and thence proceeded to Basle--to take advantage again of river navigation; the motion of a carriage being so inimical to the invalid. They proceeded down the Rhine to Rotterdam, and crossing the sea, returned at last to England, after an absence of four years.