Before he returned to his own country, Bernard made by letter two or three offers to join him in Europe, anywhere that was agreeable to him.

Gordon answered that his movements were very uncertain, and that he should be sorry to trouble Bernard to follow him about.

He had put him to this inconvenience in making him travel from Venice to Baden, and one such favor at a time was enough to ask, even of the most obliging of men.

Bernard was, of course, afraid that what he had told Gordon about Angela Vivian was really the cause of a state of things which, as between two such good friends, wore a perceptible resemblance to alienation.

Gordon had given her up; but he bore Bernard a grudge for speaking ill of her, and so long as this disagreeable impression should last, he preferred not to see him.