“Friendship,” he proceeded, “all I have ever loved, all I have ever known, all I have ever been, are too intimately associated with that one hope, to be remembered without agony, when separated from it: all must be resigned together! Would to heaven!” he added, with energy, “I could first replace him, whom, most unwillingly, I have destined to become a wanderer from his long-accustomed home, and deprived of a rank, without which, he loathes existence, and which is valueless to me! But, poor fellow, he would not retain, for one hour, what he called my rights. Of his rash attempt at suicide, you are aware.” Julia bowed her assent. “The shocking occurrence,” he went on, “took place, as you also know, just as I was on the point of setting out for Lodore——.” That, thought Julia, I did not know before; but she felt not very well able to interrupt him; nor did she deem the circumstance of any importance. “After which,” continued Fitz-Ullin, “the imperious necessity of soothing and guarding my unfortunate friend, lest he should repeat the attempt on his life, obliged me to have recourse to writing. You know the rest, Julia.” His look and manner here, expressed something of wildness, although, in the arrangement of his words, there was a forced composure. “I only know,” she replied, with difficulty suppressing her tears, “that that letter made me——,” she was going to have said, very miserable; but she changed her intention, and said, “gave me great uneasiness.” “I am sorry I should have caused you pain” he replied coldly, “but I felt that such an explanation was due. And now, let me say, farewell for ever! Without this interview, when thousand of miles apart—perhaps—I should have—I should not have.” Here he broke off abruptly, and seemed to struggle with an emotion, difficult to be suppressed. Of his last speech, Julia had heard, or at least had comprehended, but the words, “Farewell for ever!” “I go,” he recommenced, with a voice so hoarse from emotion, that it literally could not have been recognized for his; “I go to-morrow to Lodore, to take a long farewell of my dearest, most honoured friend, your revered grandmother: after that, to sea; to end, I hope, my miserable career, by dying honourably in the service of my country.”