"Oh yes, of course. Now I shall--by the way, Lady Caroline, I recollect now--it scarcely impressed me then--that during that conversation you seemed to have some doubts as to what Marian--as to what might be the reply to the letter which I told you I had written?" "I certainly had." "And you endeavoured to wean me from the miserable self-conceit under which I was labouring, and failed. I recollect your hints now. Tell me, Lady Caroline, why was I so blind? What made you suspect?" "My dear Mr. Joyce, you were blind because you were in love! I suspected because, being merely a looker-on--an interested one, I acknowledge, for I had a great interest in your welfare, but still merely a looker-on, and therefore, according to the old proverb, seeing most of the game--I could not help noticing that the peculiar position of affairs, and the length of time you remained without any news of your _fiancée_ afforded grave grounds of suspicion." "Yes," said poor Walter; "as you say, I am blind. I never noticed that." "Now, Mr. Joyce," said Lady Caroline, "the question is not with the past, but with the future. What do you intend doing?" "I have scarcely thought. It matters very little." "Pardon my saying that it matters very much. Do you think of taking up this appointment for the newspaper that you spoke of--this correspondentship in Berlin?" "No; I think not. I really don't know--I thought of remaining as I am." "What! pass the rest of your life in writing Lord Hetherington's letters, and cramming him for speeches which he will never deliver?" "It is an honest and an easy way of earning a living, at all events." "Of earning a living? And are you going to content yourself with 'earning your living,' Mr. Joyce?" "Oh, Lady Caroline, why should I do anything else? The desire for making money has gone from me altogether with the receipt and perusal of that letter. She was the spur that urged me on; my dreams of fame and wealth and position were for her, not for myself; and now----" "And now you are going to abandon it all--do you mean to tell me that? That you, a young man possessing intellect, and energy, and industry, with a career before you, are about to abandon that career, and to condemn yourself to vegetation--sheer and simple vegetation, mind, not life--merely because you have been grossly deceived by a woman, who, your common sense ought to have told you, has been playing you false for months, and who, as she herself confesses, has all her life rated the worthiness of people as to what they were worth in money? You are clearly not in your right mind, Mr. Joyce. I am surprised at you!" "What would you have me do, Lady Caroline? You sneer at the notion of my remaining with Lord Hetherington. Surely you would not have me go to Berlin?"