And the once haughty India, haughty now no longer, found it necessary to do something for her own support. In a legal point of view, it was not by any means obligatory upon India to impoverish herself to pay her father’s or her husband’s debts. A portion of the property, sufficient for her own comfortable and even elegant maintenance, she might still have withheld from the creditors; but with a late though noble sense of justice—emulative of Mark’s own strict rectitude—she resolved to pay the uttermost farthing, and clear, as much as possible, from blame the memory of the dead, by cancelling, at least, their pecuniary obligations; even though by doing so she should leave herself quite penniless. In vain her friends and neighbours remonstrated. India, once so obstinate in wrong, could be equally firm in right. The estate settled, the creditors all paid off, all other claims of justice satisfied, and India, with a small surplus, turned to consider what next she should do. In the South, luxurious houses enough were open to her. All—even those who would fain, out of kindness, have persuaded her to reserve a portion of her fortune from the claims of justice—were eloquent in the praise of that high sense of honour that led her to disregard alike her own self-interest and their benevolent counsel. And many among the wealthy families of her acquaintance, with true Southern hospitality, invited and pressed her to come and make their house her home for as long as she liked. And there is no doubt but that the high-born, beautiful, and accomplished young widow, would have been considered a great acquisition in the drawing-room of any country house. But at no time of her life would India have endured such a life of luxurious dependence—and even now, when her heart had been disciplined and chastened by sorrow, she much preferred the honest independence of labour. Therefore she gratefully and somewhat proudly, withal, declined the invitations of her friends, bade them kindly adieu, and left the neighbourhood. Something of the old haughty reserve remaining, perhaps, induced her to cover her retreat. And so—many of her friends—Mark among others—had quite lost trace of her. And she, also, had lost sight of _all_, except of Mark Sutherland, whose rising star she watched from afar, with mingled emotions of pride, joy, and passionate regret. She had effectually hidden herself in the great city of New York, where, as a teacher of music and drawing, she lived in strict retirement, and whence she watched the upward progress of the successful statesman. At the close of his first senatorial term, Mark Sutherland had been set up as the candidate of the liberal party for one of the highest offices in the gift of the people. Political business, about this time, called Mr. Sutherland to New York. He was received with enthusiasm by the friends of his party, and when his business was dispatched, he entered freely into the fashionable society of the city.