Love. I leave him behind me for the worst thou canst do. He that quits
thee now is another than he: Francesco Ignoto, Pilgrim, in need of
Grace."

Then I addressed myself stoutly to the hills; and it is a circumstance
worthy of remark that the further I pushed the more certainly I
recovered my spirits. I suppose there never was yet in this world a
young man to whom the future did not appeal more urgently than the
present, or who would not rather undertake an adventure without a
shilling to his name than in his post-chaise and four. It is, I take it,
of the essence of romance that the lady's castle-prison of enchantment
lies beyond the forest, across the hills or over sea; and most assuredly
that damsel who is to be won by means of a courier leading a spare horse
is as little worth your pains as she whose price is half a guinea. I, in
that commencement of my pilgrimage, then, was happy because I was doing
something, and hopeful because I could not see my way!




CHAPTER VII

I AM MISCONCEIVED AT THE HOSPITAL


I am conscious that the reader may find much to condemn in my last
chapter. He may think my schemes chimerical, my methods undisciplined;
he may say that I am perverse. I shall only urge in defence of what I
did that I deeply loved, and had deeply injured, the lovely Aurelia. She
had departed from me in misunderstanding and anger; she did not believe