or an instant. The
rain beat heavily upon him; and cold and hunger were gnawing at his heart
again.

He rose, and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further. The street
was silent and empty; the few passengers who passed by, at that late
hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost in the
violence of the storm. Again that heavy chill struck through his frame,
and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it. He coiled himself up in a
projecting doorway, and tried to sleep.

But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes. His mind wandered
strangely, but he was awake, and conscious. The well-known shout of
drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips, the board
was covered with choice rich food--they were before him: he could see
them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them--and, though
the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the
deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones;
that death was coming upon him by inches--and that there were none to
care for or help him.

Suddenly he started up, in the extremity of terror. He had heard his own
voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what, or why. Hark! A
groan!--another! His senses were leaving him: half-formed and incoherent
words burst from his lips; and his hands sought to tear and lacerate his
flesh. He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice failed
him.

He raised his head, and looked up the long dismal street. He recollected
that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and night in those
dreadful streets, had sometimes gone distracted with their own
loneliness. He remembered to have heard many years before that a
homeless wretch had once been found in a solitary corner, sharpening a
rusty knife to plunge into his own heart, preferring death to that
endless, weary, wandering to and fro. In an instant his resolve was
taken, his limbs received new life; he ran quickly from the spot, and
paused not for breath until he reached the river-side.

He crept softly down the steep stone stairs that lead from the
commencement of Waterloo Bridge, down to the water's level. He crouched
into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed. Never did
prisoner's heart throb with the hope of liberty and life half so eagerly
as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death. The watch
passed close to him, but he remained unobserved; a