"Blanche."
So it was all over.
"It's a good letter," murmured the General; "but I prefer the one Julia wrote to Juan." Then he read it through again, and found, as is usually the case, that the second perusal reversed his impression of the first. Did she really mean he was to abstain from all attempt to follow her? He examined the envelope; it bore the stamp of the General Post Office; the contents certainly afforded him no clue, yet, judging by analogy, he argued that no woman would lay such stress on the precautions she had taken if she did not wish their efficacy to be proved. When he found, however, that nothing short of police-detectives and newspaper advertisements would avail him, he took a juster view of her intentions, and in the chivalry of his nature resolved that under this great affliction, as in every other condition of their acquaintance, he would yield implicitly to her wish.
So he went back into the world, grave, kindly, and courteous as before. There were a few more grey hairs in his whiskers, and he avoided ladies' society altogether; otherwise, to the unobservant eye, he was little altered; but a dear old friend whom he had nursed through cholera at Varna, and dragged from under a dead horse at Lucknow, took him into a bay-window of the club-library, and thus addressed him—
"My good fellow, you're looking shamefully seedy. Idleness never suited you. Nothing like work to keep old horses sound. Why don't you apply for employment? There's always something to do in the East."
"SEEKING REST AND FINDING NONE"