Morton seated himself on a jutting edge of the rock overhanging the bay, and gave himself up to his thoughts.
"Two years of wandering! Two years more, and I should grow like the man in Anastasius, never happy at rest, never content in motion. I have had my fill of adventure. I must learn repose before it is too late. Why is it that I look so longingly towards America? Except half a dozen near friends, I have no ties there that are worth the name. America is the paradise of the laboring class, the purgatory of those of educated tastes. What career is open to me there, that I could not better follow elsewhere? I have chosen my path. I have an object which fills and engrosses me, and would fill the lifetime of twenty men abler than I. America is not my best field of labor; but where else should I plant myself? I could not live in England. I am of English race, but of an altered type; too like, and too unlike, to find harmony there. The continent is more cosmopolitan; but it would be a dreary life. I should grow homesick, thinking of the old woods and rocks. I will go home, buckle to my work, and end my days where I began them.
"My life has been, in its small way, a varied one; very hard, at times, but perhaps none too much so. Blows are good for most men, and suffering, to the farthest limit of their endurance, what they most need. It is a child's part to complain under any fate; and what color of complaint have I, or any man sound in mind and body, and with the world free before him? And yet I turn girl-hearted when I think of that summer evening by the lake at Matherton. What is my fate to Edith Leslie's? How will a few years of suffering, with one deadening memory in their wake, compare with her life-long endurance? A woman's nature, it is said, will mould itself into conformity with her husband's. I will rather believe that Vinal's presence, instead of drawing her to itself, has repelled her upward into a higher atmosphere, and made her life as lofty as it must be sad. I wish to go back, and yet I shrink from this voyage. I have some cause, remembering my last welcome home. Heaven knows what I may learn of her this time. It was her marriage then; perhaps it will be her death now. And which of the two will have been the worse either for me to hear or for her to undergo? Perhaps these letters may bring some word of her; though that is not likely, for none of my friends, but one, know that I should have any special interest in hearing it. If they write of her, it will be some news of disaster."
These dismal forebodings weighed upon him, and his desire to have them resolved soon grew so importunate, that mounting his horse, he followed Buckland's track towards the town. Threading the busy streets, he stopped before a door adorned with the effigy of a spread eagle wearing a striped shield about his neck, and clutching thunderbolts and olive boughs in his claws. He threw the rein to his servant, mounted the consular stair, and at the head met Buckland emerging.
"Is the consul come?"
"Yes; and letters for you. I am sorry for you, if you mean to answer them all."
And he gave Morton a formidable packet. Morton cut the string.
"These are all six or eight months old. They are postmarked from Calcutta."
"Yes, they came after we had gone up the country, and were sent back to this place to meet you. Wait a moment; here are more. These two have just come from England."
Morton took them; recognized on one the handwriting of Meredith; on the other, that of his friend Mrs. Ashland. His heart leaped to his throat; he tore open the seal, and glanced down the page.