To this plan her doting, old uncle could be no hindrance, as its consummation belonged to future years, while a few weeks or months must naturally terminate the life of a man of ninety, who had already fallen into second childhood. But it might be well to conciliate even this old lunatic, and to do this Julius Luxmore resolved. There was one serious trouble in his way; it was not an obstacle, for Julius resolved that it should not be such; but it was a grief. It was the thought of Barbara Brande, whom, notwithstanding all his selfish ambition, he still loved—the thought of Barbara in her awful bereavement—of Barbara, the noble and true-hearted, now crushed down under an overwhelming weight of sorrow—and whom he should rather hasten to raise up, support and console—than deceive, betray and abandon—the thought of Barbara that would _not_ be banished, but that made his heart intensely ache. For he was not old in sin, or hardened in guilt, this Julius Luxmore!—his ruling passion had been powerfully tempted, and had betrayed his integrity; he had sold his soul to the fiend and was resolved to do his work—that was all! and truly that was enough. He knew that to Barbara’s noble, truthful, and confiding nature the belief in his death would bring less of anguish than the knowledge of his falsehood—falsehood, the perfidy of which was so extremely aggravated under the circumstances of her tremendous calamities. He determined to permit Barbara to believe him dead; and for this reason gave a fictitious name, instead of his own. It is true, he felt that this fraud might be discovered; but if it should be, he was resolved to shift all the responsibility upon others, by affirming that _they_ had made a mistake in the name. And to defer as long as possible any chance of being identified as Julius Luxmore, late mate of Captain Brande, he had, immediately on reaching the port of Baltimore, slipped out of sight and concealed himself. He made his way to New York, and thence took a vessel bound down the coast. He landed at Norfolk—there purchased a small, clean schooner, and having manned it with negroes, set sail for the East, or Orient Isle. CHAPTER XXIII. ETOILE L’ORIENT. “She was all lightness, life and glee! One of the shapes we seem To meet in visions of the night; But should they greet our waking sight, Imagine that we dream.”—_George Hill._