Darrel recognised that it was impossible to write while in this vein, so he threw down his pen in despair, and wandered forth on his nightly quest for adventures. But the spirit to seek them did not move him, and in place of observing the life around him, he turned his eyes inward to contemplate the loved image of Maria Sandoval. Disappointed, worried, and racked with a thousand doubts, this lover of a day turned homeward, where he retired to bed and did his best to sleep. For the most part of the night he courted slumber in vain, but towards morning exhausted nature claimed her rights, and Darrel slept heavily until ten o'clock. While he was idling over his breakfast, with a tired face and no appetite, Roderick Blake was announced, and entered fresh as a rose to greet his friend. "How are you my boy?" said the Irishman, who was in exuberant spirits. "You see, I haven't lost much time in looking you up. Breakfast, is it? Ham, eggs, and fish; a mighty good notion of a meal it is. Faith, I don't mind assisting you to clear the table." "Sit down and welcome. I haven't got any appetite myself," said Darrel. Blake required no second invitation, but, taking off his gloves, drew a chair up to the table and did wonders as a trencherman. The food melted like snow before his healthy appetite, and all the time he was chatting and laughing and making himself generally agreeable. His sunny clean-shaven face twinkled all over with humour, and his incessant flow of conversation, more or less trivial, did much to raise Darrel's spirits. He even acknowledged the service Blake had done him in banishing care. "And I'm glad to see," he added, "that you have not lost the appetite for which you were renowned at school." "Faith, no! but it's little chance I've had of satisfying that appetite," replied Blake airily. "What! have you been hard up?" "No; but I'm hard up now." "Yet you talk of marrying," said Frank reprovingly. "Not at present. Lydia will wait till I am rich," replied the other. "We are both young and can wait." "How do you intend to become rich?" "Not by working, my dear boy," rejoined Blake lighting his pipe, "but by inheritance." "Another Irish uncle!" "Faith, no; a grand aunt, who is mighty ill at present. I'll come in for her money when she takes the last vacancy for an angel." Darrel could not help laughing at the oddity of the remark, the more especially as it was accompanied by a sly wink. Then he became grave. "I'm afraid you are an awful scamp, Blake." "Just so," said Roderick complacently. "I'm a rolling stone; and, faith, I've been rolling all over the world these ten years." "Oh!" remarked Frank, with a recollection of the case; "have you been in South America?" "You bet, sir; in every part of it." "In Peru?" "Yes." "In Lima?" "Rather; for two years." "You know a good deal about the place, I suppose?" Blake shrugged his shoulders. "I knew more than was good for me," he said with a gloomy look.