Do I remember? Ask me not again! My soul has but one passion--to forget! Oh, is there nothing in the world then To take away the soul’s divine regret? Alas, for love is evermore divine, Immortal is the sorrow love must bring, The buried jewel seeketh yet to shine, And music’s spirit haunts the idle string, So doth the heart in sadness ever twine, Some fading wreath that keeps hope lingering. CHAPTER XVIII. LAURIER’S ATONEMENT. When two people are of the same mind that certain subjects are painful, they are not apt to recall them to each other’s memory. Leon Lyndon, as he chose to call himself, left New York within the week with his strangely recovered daughter, and in new pursuits and pleasures both sought oblivion of the painful past. Lyndon had become rich while at the gold fields, and he spared no expense on Jessie. Finding that in her restless mood she enjoyed travel more than anything else, they spent six months wandering over their native land, enjoying its beauties and grandeur, unsurpassed by any other country in the world. Then they crossed the ocean and resumed their migratory habits. Another six months were spent in this way, then a weariness fell on both and they longed for rest. The father decided to settle in Germany for a year and cultivate his daughter’s mind. He had already discovered to his delight that she had inherited his great talent for music, together with a voice of rare power and melody. Securing the best teachers that money could procure, they spent eighteen quiet months in the polishing of Jessie’s mind, and father and daughter became passionately attached to each other, finding in this warm affection some balm for past sorrow. Meanwhile, Lyndon had kept from his daughter one fact that she would doubtless have found very interesting--the story of the accident that had prevented the marriage of Frank Laurier at the appointed time. He had read in the next day’s papers the story of the interrupted marriage--the bride’s long wait at the church, the mysterious failure of the bridegroom to arrive, the bride’s mortification and her return home--then the solution of the mystery in the accident that had befallen Laurier, nearly costing him his life, as it was stated that he was lingering between life and death with concussion of the brain. Leon Lyndon immediately comprehended that he had been the cause of the trouble by running into Laurier with his wheel, and though it had been unavoidable, he felt a keen remorse and regret for his part in the tragedy, although he owed the victim no sympathy, seeing what grief he had brought upon his daughter. These facts Lyndon thought it prudent to conceal from Jessie, supposing that the marriage would take place anyhow, as soon as the condition of the bridegroom improved, so the name was tacitly dropped between them, and after they left New York remained unspoken, if unforgotten.