and with what, in another mood, I might have
called pleasant people; but I held myself
estranged and aloof from all. I could mark
many an impertinent allusion to my cold and
distant manner, and could see that a young sub
on his way to join was even witty at the
expense of my retiring disposition. The creature,
Groves he was called, used to try to "trot me
out," as he phrased it; but I maintained both
my resolve and my temper,  and gave him no
triumph.

I was almost sorry on the morning we dropped
anchor in the harbour. The sense of doing
something, anything, with a firm persistence had
given me cheerfulness and courage. However,
I had now a task of some nicety before me, and
addressed myself at once to its discharge. At
the hotel I learned that the cottage inhabited
by Mrs. Keats was in a small nook of one of the
bays, and only an easy walk from the town;
and so I despatched a messenger at once with
Miss Crofton's note to Miss Herbert, enclosed
in a short one from myself, to know if she
would permit me to wait upon her, with reference
to the matter in the letter. I spoke of
myself in the third person and as the bearer of
the letter.

While I was turning over the letters and
papers in my writing-desk, awaiting her reply, I
came upon Buller's note to his brother, and,
without any precise idea why, I sent it by a
servant to the Government House, with my card.
It was completely without a purpose that I did
so, and if my reader has not experienced
moments of the like "inconsequence," I should
totally break down in attempting to account for
their meaning.

Miss Herbert's reply came back promptly.
She requested that the writer of the note she
had just read would favour her with a visit at
his earliest convenience.

I set forth immediately. What a strange
and thrilling sensation it is when we take up
some long-dropped link in life, go back to some
broken thread of our existence, and try to
attach it to the present! We feel young again
in the bygone, and yet far older even than our
real age in the thought of the changes time has
wrought upon us in the mean while. A week or
so before I had looked with impatience for this
meeting, and now I grew very fainthearted as
the moment drew nigh. The only way I could
summon courage for the occasion was by thinking
that in the mission entrusted to me I was
actually nothing. There were incidents and
events not one of which touched me, and I
should pass away off the scene when our interview
was over, and be no more remembered by
her.

It was evident that the communication had
engaged her attention to some extent by the
promptitude of her message to me; and with
this thought I crossed the little lawn, and rang
the bell at the door.

"The gentleman expected by Miss Herbert,
sir?" asked a smart English maid. " Come this
way, sir. She will see you in a few minutes."

I had fully ten minutes to inspect the
details of a pretty little drawing-room, one of
those little female temples where scattered
drawings and books and music, and, above all,
the delicious odour of fresh flowers, all
harmonise together, and set you a thinking how
easily life could glide by with such appliances
were they only set in motion by the touch of
the enchantress herself. The door opened at
last, but it was the maid; she came to say that
Mrs. Keats was very poorly that day, and Miss
Herbert could not leave her at that moment;
and if it were not perfectly convenient to the
gentleman to wait, she begged to know when it
would suit him to call again?

"As for me," said I, " I have come to Malta
solely on this matter; pray say that I will wait
as long as she wishes. I am completely at her
orders."

I strolled out after this through one of the
windows that opened on the lawn, and gaining
the sea-side, I sat down upon a rock to bide her
coming. I might have sat about half an hour thus,
when I heard a rapid step approaching, and I
had just time to arise when Miss Herbert stood
before me. She started back, and grew pale, very
pale, as she recognised me, and for fully a minute
there we both stood, unable to speak a word.

"Am I to understand, sir," said she, at last,
"that you are the bearer of this letter?" And
she held it open towards me.

"Yes," said I, with a great effort at
collectedness. "I have much to ask your
forgiveness for. It is fully a year since I was
charged to place that in your hands, but one
mischance after another has befallen me; not to
own that in my own purposeless mode of life I
have had no enemy worse than my fate."

"I have heard something of your fondness
for adventure," said she, with a strange smile
that blended a sort of pity with a gentle
irony. " After we parted company at
Schaffhausen, I believe you travelled for some time on
foot? We heard, at least, that you took a
fancy to explore a mode of life few persons have
penetrated, or, at least, few of your rank and
condition."

"May I ask, what do you believe that rank
and condition to be, Miss Herbert?" asked I,
firmly.

She blushed deeply at this; perhaps I was too
abrupt in the way I spoke, and I hastened to add,

"When I offered to be the bearer of the letter
you have just read, I was moved by another
wish than merely to render you some service. I
wanted to tell you, once for all, that if I lived
for awhile in a fiction land of my own invention,
with day-dreams and fancies, and hopes and
ambitions all unreal, I have come to pay the
due penalty of my deceit, and confess that
nothing can be more humble than I am in birth,
station, or fortune—my father an apothecary,
my name Potts, my means a very few pounds in
the world; and yet, with all that avowal, I feel
prouder now that I have made it, than ever I
did in the false assumption of some condition I
had no claim to."