Zorilda had indeed often wondered at the frigid nature of that affection which could impose upon itself the pangs and penalties of such lengthened absence. She had often asked herself what spell had the power to charm the wanderer, and would then chide her heart for its jealous doubts. The intervals between Algernon's letters were much increased since he commenced his foreign travel, but Zorilda could account for this. "He knows that I have no money, and would spare me his mother's reproaches for the cost of frequent postage," said the innocent Zoé, who judged of others by herself. Every letter, too, when tried by the test which revealed its hidden sentiments, contained assurance of undying love which kindred flames developed, when, spite of her prohibition, inspired by "Hope, kind cheat, fair fallacy," she held the paper to the fire, "pardoning the treason for the traitor's sake." Zorilda's quick penetration had also remarked sundry abbreviations and blots in Algernon's late _despatches_, which might be truly so called in every sense of the word, and sighed as she recollected that a celebrated Madame de Staal, who lived in the age of Louis Quinze, had discovered the refrigeration of a lover's affection, in his voluntary choice of a short road when he used to conduct her home to her convent, after passing the day with her friends in Paris. Two sides of the triangle which formed the court of the convent would have afforded a longer _tête-à-tête_ than the diagonal; yet the lover abridged opportunity by preferring the diagonal, and the young Frenchwoman at once decided that he had ceased to be one, and would see him no more. She was right, but though Zorilda felt the shortened words as much as Madame de Staal in her youth had felt the shortened way, she pleaded unavoidable haste, to excuse all apparent negligence or contempt, though the acuteness of her sensibility made her alive to the slightest change of temperature in affection. Even had her reasoning been more severe, it would not have stood proof against the first sound of the carriage wheels which announced Algernon's arrival within the gates of Henbury. The most subtile arguments are but feeble weapons when opposed to true love, when the latter is re-inforced by presence of the beloved object. One look is sufficient to put to flight a world of reasoning, and Zorilda did not wait to see her truant, before her beating heart proclaimed full pardon of every omission or commission of which he had ever been guilty. Algernon's letter inclosed an open note, which his mother as usual read before she suffered it to leave her hands. To _her_ eyes it only contained a few careless words, calculated to lull every apprehension of repose. She could find nothing more than--