'Mr. Smith, I thank you for your honesty, but good advice may come too late. I am no saint, and God only knows how much less of one I may become; but mark my words,--if you are ever tempted by passion, and vanity, and fine ladies, to form liaisons, as the Jezebels call them, snares, and nets, and labyrinths of blind ditches, to keep you down through life, stumbling and grovelling, hating yourself and hating the chain to which you cling--in that hour pray--pray as if the devil had you by the throat,--to Almighty God, to help you out of that cursed slough! There is nothing else for it!--pray, I tell you!' There was a terrible earnestness about the guardsman's face which could not be mistaken. Lancelot looked at him for a moment, and then dropped his eyes ashamed, as if he had intruded on the speaker's confidence by witnessing his emotion. In a moment the colonel had returned to his smile and his polish. 'And now, my dear invalid, I must beg your pardon for sermonising. What do you say to a game of ecarte? We must play for love, or we shall excite ourselves, and scandalise Mrs. Lavington's piety.' And the colonel pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket, and seeing that Lancelot was too thoughtful for play, commenced all manner of juggler's tricks, and chuckled over them like any schoolboy. 'Happy man!' thought Lancelot, 'to have the strength of will which can thrust its thoughts away once and for all.' No, Lancelot! more happy are they whom God will not allow to thrust their thoughts from them till the bitter draught has done its work. From that day, however, there was a cordial understanding between the two. They never alluded to the subject; but they had known the bottom of each other's heart. Lancelot's sick-room was now pleasant enough, and he drank in daily his new friend's perpetual stream of anecdote, till March and hunting were past, and April was half over. The old squire came up after dinner regularly (during March he had hunted every day, and slept every evening); and the trio chatted along merrily enough, by the help of whist and backgammon, upon the surface of this little island of life,--which is, like Sinbad's, after all only the back of a floating whale, ready to dive at any moment.--And then?--