"But you are going abroad; let me know where he is; I will watch over him."
"And unsettle a right ambition for a wrong one? No, you shall know nothing of him till he can proclaim himself. I think that day will come."
Audley mused a moment, and then said, "Well, perhaps you are right. After all, as you say, independence is a great blessing, and my ambition has not rendered myself the better or the happier."
"Yet, my poor Audley, you ask me to be ambitious."
"I only wish you to be consoled," cried Egerton, with passion.
"I will try to be so; and by the help of a milder remedy than yours. I said that my adventure might influence my future; it brought me acquainted not only with the young man I speak of, but the most winning, affectionate child,—a girl."
"Is this child an Avenel too?"
"No, she is of gentle blood,—a soldier's daughter; the daughter of that Captain Digby on whose behalf I was a petitioner to your patronage. He is dead, and in dying, my name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless, to be the guardian to his orphan. I shall be so. I have at last an object in life."
"But can you seriously mean to take this child with you abroad?"
"Seriously, I do."