"As you didn't go before, it cannot be helped. Your father thinks you are diligently reading law in the office of Colonel Bushnell, in New Orleans. We can't help the past; but I advise you to deceive him no longer."
"What do you mean?"
"Go into the office and read law with all your might. Then you will be deceiving him no longer. You will be doing just what he thinks you are doing," replied Tom, lightly.
"And not tell him of the past?"
"Certainly not."
Edward felt the need of some occupation, and he accepted the counsel of his friend. He studied day and night, for he could not join in any of the pleasures of the city, or go into the gay society which Tom frequented. He wrote to Mrs. Wayland, enclosing a considerable sum of money; but he forbade her writing to him, lest the fact of a letter to him from Camden should connect him with the child. It was a groundless fear; but he had now fully resolved not to disturb his father's peace by acknowledging his own disobedience.
For four months he studied so diligently that his friend began to fear he would impair his health. Every day found him more cheerful than the last; and it was plain enough that youth and time were rapidly conquering his grief. He began to go into society again, and the presence of the ladies was not altogether repulsive to him. In June, with Tom as his companion, he went home to spend the summer.
His father commented upon his altered appearance, but Tom insisted that it was because he had studied so hard. He had not only read law, but had learned the Spanish language, so that he could converse fluently in it. The vacation wonderfully recruited his health, and in the autumn the students returned to their southern home. Edward studied as diligently as ever. Youth had wholly conquered his grief, and he was as before. He sent money regularly to Mrs. Wayland; but he expressed no desire to see his child, though he declared to Tom that the little one still had a place in his heart, and that he intended at some future time to acknowledge it.
Edward boarded with his friend's father, who had a daughter. She was but sixteen when Edward first became a member of the family. She was nineteen now, and the young northerner began to be tenderly impressed towards her, though his attentions did not begin till his wife had been dead over a year. The attraction was mutual, and Edward wrote to his father about it. The old gentleman was pleased, and facetiously remarked that he had all along supposed there was something or somebody in New Orleans, besides Tom or the law, that had drawn him there for three winters. He hadn't the slightest objection. Edward could now please himself in that respect, as in every other. The "now" was heavily underscored, and the son had no difficulty in understanding his meaning. It was known that all the Medways were dead, and the Honorable Mr. Montague could no longer object to any match his heir might choose to make.
The marriage was deferred till the next year, when Edward's father and mother made a winter tour to New Orleans. The great event was duly chronicled in the newspapers, and the young couple made a bridal tour to Europe, where they spent a year. On their return an elegant residence, next to the Honorable Mr. Montague's, in one of the finest towns on Penobscot Bay, awaited them.