But the excitement of new scenes and pursuits at length roused his interest, and incited him to mental exertion.

With the return of spring also, hopes, which he believed forever crushed, began to regain their influence in his mind.

He was about to revisit England, on some affairs of consequence; and he resolved to improve the opportunity to satisfy his anxiety respecting Lucie, and learn, if possible, what he had still left to hope or fear.
But an alarming illness, which attacked his mother, and left her long in a dangerous state, obliged him to defer his design; and another winter passed away, and various circumstances still rendered the voyage impracticable.

Time gradually softened, but it could not destroy, the impression of his ill-fated attachment; and, though the image of Lucie was still cherished in his remembrance, he began to regard the days of their happy intercourse as a pleasant dream which had passed away,--a delightful vision of the fancy, which he loved to contemplate, but could never hope to realise.
It was, indeed, with emotions too powerful for disguise, that he found himself again, and so unexpectedly, in the presence of his beloved Lucie.

He was ignorant of the name, even, of the relative to whom Mad.
Rossville had entrusted her,--he had not the most distant idea, that she was connected with the lady of La Tour; and, in approaching the fort of St.John's, he little thought, that he was so near the goal of his wishes.