claimed him now, have gone
on the tramp with her again. Wherein could this civilized life show
itself to him better than that to which he had been born? For clothing
he cared little, and he had always managed to kill his hunger or thirst,
if at longer intervals, then with greater satisfaction. Wherein is the
life of that man who merely does his eating and drinking and clothing
after a civilized fashion better than that of the gipsy or tramp? If the
civilized man is honest to boot, and gives good work in return for the
bread or turtle on which he dines, and the gipsy, on the other hand,
steals his dinner, I recognize the importance of the difference; but
if the rich man plunders the community by exorbitant profits, or
speculation with other people's money, while the gipsy adds a fowl or
two to the produce of his tinkering; or, once again, if the gipsy is as
honest as the honest citizen, which is not so rare a case by any means
as people imagine, I return to my question: Wherein, I say, is the warm
house, the windows hung with purple, and the table covered with fine
linen, more divine than the tent or the blue sky, and the dipping in the
dish? Why should not Shargar prefer a life with the mother God had given
him to a life with Mrs. Falconer? Why should he prefer geography to
rambling, or Latin to Romany? His purposelessness and his love for
Robert alone kept him where he was.

The next evening, having given up his praying, Robert sat with his
Sallust before him. But the fount of tears began to swell, and the more
he tried to keep it down, the more it went on swelling till his throat
was filled with a lump of pain. He rose and left the room. But he could
not go near the garret. That door too was closed. He opened the house
door instead, and went out into the street. There, nothing was to be
seen but faint blue air full of moonlight, solid houses, and shining
snow. Bareheaded he wandered round the corner of the house to the window
whence first he had heard the sweet sounds of the pianoforte. The fire
within lighted up the crimson curtains, but no voice of music came
forth. The window was as dumb as the pale, faintly befogged moon
overhead, itself seeming but a skylight through which shone the sickly
light of the passionless world of the dead. Not a form was in the
street. The eyes of the houses gleamed here and there upon the snow.
He leaned his elbow on the window-sill behind which stood that sealed
fountain of lovely sou