The time now was very near when Markham should take his departure from his native land, and enter upon his professional duties in another region. Pleasant as preferment may be, there is always a degree of pain felt at parting from familiar faces and familiar scenes. This unpleasant feeling was by anticipation coming upon the young barrister. He thought that he should very much miss the society to which he had been accustomed; he thought there was a peculiar, indescribable charm in the very streets of London and Westminster; he thought, with a shudder of repugnance, of a long, tedious, and as it were solitary voyage; he thought that nobody would think about him when he was gone; he thought that Clara Rivolta would be married before he came back. He wondered whether she knew that he was going abroad; he wondered whether she would care where or when he might go; he wondered whether she had ever been in love. These thoughts and these wonderings grew thicker and stronger as the time moved on, and he said to himself that Clara was a most interesting creature, but that he was not decidedly in love with her, as was very manifest by his being perfectly at ease when he was absent from her. He did not take into consideration, as perhaps he should have done, that the absence which he bore with so much fortitude was an absence likely to be soon succeeded by the pleasure of seeing her again. There was also another thought which he overlooked, and that was, why did he take pains to persuade himself that he was not in love? Who said he was?