the madness seized him again. The resolution he
made as he sat gazing at the cheque he held in his hand, being the
last, was the one he meant to keep. Years ago an elder brother had gone
out to New South Wales, had bought some land there, and had prospered.
He was not a very sympathetic brother, and had not responded to the
suggestion that the ungain-doing Dan should take himself, his bad
fortune, his unsatisfactory habits, also to New South Wales to settle
down beside him.

Dan was of opinion, however, that, once there, this brother would find
a difficulty in getting rid of him. He thought with longing of that
clean and healthy life, the escape from the slough into which his feet
would always wander while he remained here. The means to escape he now
held in his hand!

"Here I keep on sinking, sinking!" Dan said to himself, illustrating
the process with a movement of the hand which held the cheque.
"Bill--he's as hard as nails, but he'll hold me up. I shall begin over
again. I shall be free of this infernal embroglio. I shall write my
name on a clean page----"

He would not stop to repent; he would look out the first steamer that
sailed; he would pay his debts--they were not, after all, many, for he
had a constitutional objection to cheating people, and always paid when
he could. He would say good-bye to the man for whose friendship's sake
he had come here, and would shake the dust of the miserable little town
where he had played the fool of late from his feet. It was three or
four days, he remembered, since he had seen the friend of whom he
thought; he would have news to take him now! So slipping the letter
which contained the cheque into his pocket, he walked out into the
April sunshine of the little High Street, and betook himself to
Gunton's lodgings.

Gunton was the not altogether satisfactory assistant to the one doctor
in the place. Going thus early, he would catch him before he started on
his rounds.

No need to hurry, Dan! Before the good people of Hayford shall see
again the young doctor flying round on his long legs to visit the
pauper patients, or clattering in Doctor Owen's tall gig over the
cobblestones of the High Street on his way to those invalids of least
consideration entrusted to his care, the last trump shall sound.

He was not in the little sitting-room where Dan and he had smoked so
many pipes together. The visitor was striding across the passage to the
bedroom, also on the ground-floor, w