etency to
deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how
long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and
frightened too, for people were beginning to look at me.

It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to Varick-street
after all, and take a fresh start. Then I began to think how I should
get back, on which side must I go to find the cars--where was I,
literally. Then I sat down to wait, till I should see some policeman, or
some kind-looking person, near me, to whom I could apply for this very
necessary information. In the meantime I took out my purse to see if I
had the proper change. Verily, not that, nor any change at all! My heart
actually stood still. Yes, it was very true: I had given away, right
and left, during this Lent: caring nothing for money, and being very
sure of more when this was gone. I was literally penniless. I had not
even the money to ride home in the cars.

Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the most
remarkable experiences of life. To know where you can get money, to feel
that there is some _dernier ressort_ however hateful to you, is one
thing; but to _know_ that you have not a cent--not a prospect of getting
one--not a hope of earning one--no means of living--this is suffocation.
This is the stopping of that breath that keeps the world alive.

The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those pretty,
little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake. I looked down into
the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap, and remembered vaguely
the many narratives I had seen in the newspapers about unaccounted-for
and unknown suicides. I could see how it might be inevitable--a sort of
pressure, a fatality that might not be resisted. Even cowardice might be
overcome when that pressure was put on.

It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means
of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if the wheel had
made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again.
It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes
suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others.
You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.

For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for my
head; Richard had said so. I had not a cent of money, and I had no means
of earning any. The uncle who was coming to take possession of the