easy enough for me to dismiss as ridiculous from my
mind, or rather from my conscience, the tendency to see in the two
shadowy forms of my dream, the types of two real living beings, whose
names almost trembled into utterance on my lips; but I could not also
dismiss from my heart the love-images which that dream had set up there
for the worship of the senses. Those results of the night still remained
within me, growing and strengthening with every minute.

If I had been told beforehand how the mere sight of the morning would
reanimate and embolden me, I should have scouted the prediction as
too outrageous for consideration; yet so it was. The moody and boding
reflections, the fear and struggle of the hours of darkness were gone
with the daylight. The love-thoughts of Margaret alone remained, and now
remained unquestioned and unopposed. Were my convictions of a few hours
since, like the night-mists that fade before returning sunshine? I knew
not. But I was young; and each new morning is as much the new life of
youth, as the new life of Nature.

So I left my study and went out. Consequences might come how they would,
and when they would; I thought of them no more. It seemed as if I had
cast off every melancholy thought, in leaving my room; as if my heart
had sprung up more elastic than ever, after the burden that had been
laid on it during the night. Enjoyment for the present, hope for the
future, and chance and fortune to trust in to the very last! This was
my creed, as I walked into the street, determined to see Margaret again,
and to tell her of my love before the day was out. In the exhilaration
of the fresh air and the gay sunshine, I turned my steps towards
Hollyoake Square, almost as light-hearted as a boy let loose from
school, joyously repeating Shakespeare's lines as I went:

"Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts."

IX.

London was rousing everywhere into morning activity, as I passed
through the streets. The shutters were being removed from the windows
of public-houses: the drink-vampyres that suck the life of London, were
opening their eyes betimes to look abroad for the new day's prey!
Small tobacco and provision-shops in poor neighbourhoods; dirty little
eating-houses, exhaling greasy-smelling steam, and displaying a leaf of
yesterday's paper, stained and fly-blown, hanging in the windows--were
already plying, or making ready