"Thank God! I was a most conceited fool, puffed up with spiritual pride, tempting God needlessly. I went, I saw her. Heaven is my witness, that as far as passion goes, my heart is as pure as yours: but I found that I still cared more for her than for any being on earth: and I found too the sort of man upon whom--God forgive me! I must not talk of that--I despised him, hated him, pretended to teach him his duty, by behaving better to her than he did--the spiritual coxcomb that I was! What business had I with it? Why not have left all to God and her good sense? The devil tempted me to-day, in the shape of an angel of courtesy and chivalry; and here the end is come. I must find that man, Miss St. Just, if I travel the world in search of him. I must ask his pardon frankly, humbly, for my impertinence. Perhaps so I may bring him back to her, and not die with a curse on my head for having parted those whom God has joined. And then to the old fighting-trade once more--the only one, I believe, I really understand; and see whether a Russian bullet will not fly straighter than a clumsy Sikh's." Valencia listened, awe-stricken; and all the more so because this was spoken in a calm, half-abstracted voice, without a note of feeling, save where he alluded to his own mistakes. When it was over, she rose without a word, and took both his hands in her own, sobbing bitterly. "You forgive me, then, all the misery which I have caused!" "Do not talk so! Only forgive me having fancied for one moment that you were anything but what you are, an angel out of heaven." Campbell hung down his head. "Angel, truly! Azraël, the angel of death, then. Go to her now--go, and leave a humbled penitent man alone with God." "Oh, my Saint Père!" cried she, bursting into tears. "This is too wretched--all a horrid dream--and when, too--when I had been counting on telling you something so different!--I cannot now, I have not the heart." "What, more misery?" "Oh no! no! no! You will know all to-morrow. Ask Scoutbush." "I shall be gone in search of that man long before Scoutbush is awake." "Impossible! you do not know whither he is gone." "If I employ every detective in Bow Street, I will find him." "Wait, only wait, till the post comes in to-morrow. He will surely write, if not to her,--wretch that he is!--at least to some of us." "If he be alive. No. I must go up to Pen-y-gwryd, where he was last seen, and find out what I can." "They will be all in bed at this hour of the night; and if--if anything has happened, it will be over by now," added she with a shudder. "God forgive me! It will indeed: but he may write--perhaps to me. He is no coward, I believe: and he may send me a challenge. Yes, I will wait for the post." "Shall you accept it if he does?" Major Campbell smiled sadly.