But let me get on with my affairs before I start a discussion as to what love is. Let it suffice that I was suffering from a violent attack of it. However, something else was to claim me and set me on to fresh fields. Just then, as the result of the evenings and moonlight nights spent wildfowl shooting in the bogs in the cold, I got rheumatic fever, and once more returned to hospital. My illness, which became very serious, led to my being ordered the longest sea voyage I could take, in the hopes of regaining my strength. This necessitated my resigning my commission and taking my passage for a trip to New Zealand, though the doctors did not seem to think I should reach that far-off land. Thus ended my second romance. And now for fresh worlds to conquer, if Providence only gave me health. CHAPTER XI A VOYAGE TO NEW ZEALAND It was a bright summer's morning. Somewhere about noon the good clipper, the New Zealand Shipping Company's _Waipa_, slipped her cable and was taken in tow down the old River Thames. Her skipper was a good sea salt; he was a Scotsman all right. His name was Gorn. I had been allotted my cabin. I was, of course, unable to move without help, but I did look forward to getting better as the good old ship moved to the south and worked into warmer tropical climes. The days are now past to go to the other end of the world--the farthest end, anyhow, then known--in a sailing ship. We had three months' voyage in front of us. We were to call nowhere; we were just to sail merrily along for three solid months, till we reached our first port of call, Port Chalmers, in New Zealand. Our passengers were not many in what we called the saloon--three New Zealanders, who had made money as shepherds and then become owners of sheep stations, and a few intending settlers in that beautiful land, retired officers and ex-clergymen, with their families, took up the available first-class accommodation. The remainder of the passengers, of whom there were a good many, were emigrants of both sexes, a happy, contented crowd, many of whom were looking forward to the better conditions of life which New Zealand offered them through her commercial agents in London.