Personally he, Morris, would lose a friend, since a woman cannot marry and remain the friend of another man. That, however, would probably have happened in any case, and to object on this account, even in his secret heart, would be abominably selfish. Indeed, what right had he even to consider the matter? The young lady had come into his life very strangely, and made a curious impression upon him; she was now going out of it by ordinary channels, and soon nothing but the impression would remain. It was proper, natural, and the way of the world; there was nothing more to be said. Somehow he was in a dreary mood, and everything bored him. He fetched Mary’s last letter. There was nothing in it but some chit-chat, except the postscript, which was rather longer than the letter, and ran: “I am glad to hear the young lady whom you fished up out of the sea is such an assistance to you in your experiments. I gather from what I hear—although you haven’t mentioned the fact—that she is as beautiful as she is charming, and that she sings wonderfully. She must be something remarkable, I am sure, because Eliza Layard evidently detests her, and says that she is trying to ensnare the affections of that squire of dames, her brother Stephen, now temporarily homeless after a visit to Jane Rose. What will you do when you have to get on without her? I am afraid you must accustom yourself to the idea, unless she would like to make a third in the honeymoon party. Joking apart, I am exceedingly grateful to her for all the help she has given you, and, dear, dear Morris, more delighted than I can tell you to learn that after all your years of patient labour you believe success to be absolutely within sight. “My father, I am sorry to say, is no better; indeed, although the doctors deny it, I believe he is worse, and I see no prospect of our getting away from here at present. However, don’t let that bother you, and above all, don’t think of coming out to this place which makes you miserable, and where you can’t work. What a queer ménage you must be at the Abbey now! You and the Star who has risen from the ocean—she ought to have been called Venus—tête-à-tête, and the, I gather, rather feeble and uninteresting old gentleman in bed upstairs. I should like to see you when you didn’t know. Why don’t you invent a machine to enable people at a distance to see as well as to hear each other? It would be very popular and bring Society to utter wreck. Does the Northern star—she is Danish, isn’t she?—make good coffee, and how, oh! how does she get on with the cook?”