And when we turned back to the quiet inn at which we had taken up our
abode, and her mother, with her soft face, advanced to meet us, I said to
Lilian,--

"Would that in these scenes we could fix our home for life, away and afar
from the dull town we have left behind us, with the fret of its wearying
cares and the jar of its idle babble!"

"And why not, Allen? Why not? But no, you would not be happy."

"Not be happy, and with you? Sceptic, by what reasoning do you arrive at
that ungracious conclusion?"

"The heart loves repose and the soul contemplation, but the mind needs
action. Is it not so?"

"Where learned you that aphorism, out of place on such rosy lips?"

"I learned it in studying you," murmured Lilian, tenderly.

Here Mrs. Ashleigh joined us. For the first time I slept under the same
roof as Lilian. And I forgot that the universe contained an enigma to
solve or an enemy to fear.




CHAPTER LXI.

Twenty days--the happiest my life had ever known--thus glided on. Apart