Although we hid ourselves in this retirement for several months, I did not consider it necessary to adopt the further security of changing my name. I yielded to the prudence of avoiding a collision with the dwarf, if he still lived; but I shrank from the meanness of denying myself to any demand that might be made upon us, should my retreat be discovered. All links between us and London were broken. For three months, Astræa had had no communication with any body. Her friends and relations might have supposed that she was dead, which she wished them to think. She knew that she was dead to the world, and that she should never re-enter it; and she only looked forward to the moment when she might put her house in order, and sit down for the rest of her life in tranquillity and obscurity. In the beginning, this was a gladdening prospect to her; her high spirits and bounding enthusiasm sped onward into the future, and filled it with images of love in a state of beatitude; but as time advanced, and the dreary sea fell dismally on her ears, and the long walks on the beach had lost their freshness, and there was nothing to be read in each others' faces, which had not been read there ten thousand times over--except, perhaps, an increasing look of care and anxiety--this prospect of settling down, alone, away from human intercourse, without any object to live for, without motives to exertion--without aims, purpose, occupation--with a brand upon us that seemed stamped upon our foreheads, so that we dared not venture into the haunts of our fellow-men, lest they should shun us or expel us from among them--this prospect, as time advanced, grew darker and darker, and Astræa, still buoyant and energetic, and strong in her resolves, relinquished slowly the charming pictures she had drawn in her imagination, and came down to the most prosaic views of our position, tinged from day to day with tints that grew more and more sombre. The bright colors of the poetry had all faded. With the agent of my property in the north I was in constant correspondence. To him alone I confided my address, and through him received all letters and communications that were left for me in London or elsewhere. Strange to say, that for three months no intelligence reached us concerning the dwarf; nor had I any means of procuring information, unless I intrusted my agent with my secret, which I considered unsafe. I was unwilling to originate any inquiry on the subject. It was for him to seek me, not for me to follow him. He could have had no difficulty in reaching me by a letter, and his silence seemed to imply either that he had abandoned all further thoughts of revenge, or, which was more likely, that he was dead.