A new chapter in my life was commencing. I felt it and knew it. I lost no time in sending off a letter stating the great pleasure it gave me to hear even her name again, and thanking her for the pleasant greeting she had sent me; I hoped she was well and happy; this was about the gist of it. The letter was according to my best ability, sufficiently expressive to show my feeling, yet cautious enough so as not to appear intrusive. I knew well enough what the response would be. How, I cannot explain, except on the theory of mental telegraphy or spiritual affinity or something. I also stated that I did not recognize her by her new name; that I also had been married, but was now alone, my wife having died several years previous. By a slip of the pen I was about to write that I regretted she had become a widow, but my heart would not let the pen tell such a lie as that. The months seemed to be years before the answer came. She wrote that she had often thought of me, if I was living, if I was happy, and wondered if she would ever see me again; that she had been most unhappy in her marriage, assumed to please her parents; that she was now a happy widow, if to use such an expression was not improper, but as she was Irish she had the privilege of her race in using such a phrase. The letter was modest and courteous, yet expressive enough to be most satisfactory to me. It is hardly necessary for me to state that I was in a great state of mind, or heart, to be exact, after the receipt of this most welcome epistle. My plans were at once made. I wrote that I had often thought of seeing Europe, which was the truth, and as I had nothing to keep me in India, and I might have added, very much, just then, to take me out of it, I proposed to leave at once, that I might possibly come to England on my tour. Why I made such an indefinite, round-about statement I do not know. It is a species of fencing that pertains to our human nature, I suppose. The real truth is, I was going principally to England. I did not care more about Europe than about last year’s crop of figs, or of the trees in the valleys of the moon. I wrote that if I went to England at all, my address would be at my banker’s, at such a number in Leadenhall street, and that if she would allow me to call on her I hoped she would kindly drop me a line to that address. That was another little deception to which I plead guilty. I was going to Leadenhall street as quickly and as straight from Bombay as steam could carry me, and I knew, as well as I knew why I was going, that a note from her, the only object of my voyage, would be awaiting me there.