at Sorento, that corner of earth on which Horace wished to breathe his last sigh.
'Ille te mecum locus et beatæ
Postulant arces—ibi—tu—'"
"Don't, Sir, don't. Horace again! It is too much." Fairthorn was choking; but as if the idea presented to him was really too monstrous for belief, he clutched at Darrell with so uncertain and vehement a hand that he almost caught him by the throat, and sobbed out, "You must be joking."
"Seriously and solemnly, Richard Fairthorn," said Darrell, gently disentangling the fingers that threatened him with strangulation. "Seriously and solemnly I have uttered to you my deliberate purpose. I implore you, in the name of our lifelong friendship, to face this pain as I do—resolutely, cheerfully. I implore you to execute to the letter the instructions I shall leave with you on quitting England, which I shall do the day Lionel is married; and then, dear old friend, calm days, clear consciences. In climes where whole races have passed away—proud cities themselves sunk in graves—where our petty grief for a squirearch's lost house we shall both grow ashamed to indulge—there we will moralize, rail against vain dreams and idle pride, cultivate vines and orange-trees, with Horace—nay, nay, Dick—with the Flute!"
CHAPTER V.
Darrell escaped into the house; Fairthorn sank upon the ground, and resigned himself for some minutes to unmanly lamentations. Suddenly he started up; a thought came into his brain—a hope into his breast. He made a caper—launched himself into a precipitate zigzag—gained the hall-door—plunged into his own mysterious hiding-place—and in less than an hour re-emerged, a letter in his hand, with which he had just time to catch the postman, as that functionary was striding off from the back-yard with the official bag.
This exploit performed, Fairthorn shambled into his chair at the dinner-table, as George Morley concluded the grace which
