Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/122

 houses as yet astir, but the sun bright, the air fresh, Guy Darrell rode from his door. He did not return the same day, nor the next, nor at all. But, late in the evening of the second day, his horse, reeking hot and evidently hard-ridden, stopped at the porch of Fawley Manor-House; and Darrell flung himself from the saddle, and into Fairthorn's arms. "Back again--back again--and to leave no more!" said he, looking round; "Spes et Fortuna valete!"

CHAPTER XVII.

A MAN'S LETTER--UNSATISFACTORY AND PROVOKING AS A MAN'S LETTERS ALWAYS ARE.

GUY DARRELL To COLONEL MORLEY.

Fawley Manor-House, August 11, 18--. I HAVE decided, my dear Alban. I did not take three days to do so, though the third day may be just over ere you learn my decision. I shall never marry again: I abandon that last dream of declining years. My object in returning to the London world was to try whether I could not find, amongst the fairest and most attractive women that the world produces--at least to an English eye--some one who could inspire me with that singleness of affection which could alone justify the hope that I might win in return a wife's esteem and a contented home. That object is now finally relinquished, and with it all idea of resuming the life of cities. I might have re-entered a political career, had I first secured to myself a mind sufficiently serene and healthful for duties that need the concentration of thought and desire. Such a state of mind I cannot secure. I have striven for it; I am baffled. It is said that politics are a jealous mistress--that they require the whole man. The saying is not invariably true in the application it commonly receives--that is, a politician may have some other employment of intellect, which rather enlarges his powers than distracts their political uses. Successful politicians have united with great parliamentary toil and triumph legal occupations or learned studies. But politics do require that the heart should be free, and at peace from all more absorbing private anxieties--from the gnawing of a memory or a care, which dulls ambition and paralyses energy.