t there are some people who highly esteem me; that I have in
my way won a Station which is considered worth winning.'

'Surely, Mr Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always known it
from Charley.'

'I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home such as it is, my
station such as it is, my affections such as they are, to any one of the
best considered, and best qualified, and most distinguished, among the
young women engaged in my calling, they would probably be accepted. Even
readily accepted.'

'I do not doubt it,' said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the ground.

'I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer and to settle
down as many men of my class do: I on the one side of a school, my wife
on the other, both of us interested in the same work.'

'Why have you not done so?' asked Lizzie Hexam. 'Why do you not do so?'

'Far better that I never did! The only one grain of comfort I have had
these many weeks,' he said, always speaking passionately, and, when
most emphatic, repeating that former action of his hands, which was
like flinging his heart's blood down before her in drops upon the
pavement-stones; 'the only one grain of comfort I have had these many
weeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and if the same spell had come
upon me for my ruin, I know I should have broken that tie asunder as if
it had been thread.'

She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking gesture. He
answered, as if she had spoken.

'No! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more than it is
voluntary in me to be here now. You draw me to you. If I were shut up in
a strong prison, you would draw me out. I should break through the wall
to come to you. If I were lying on a sick bed, you would draw me up--to
stagger to your feet and fall there.'

The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutely
terrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece of the coping of the
burial-ground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the stone.

'No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within him. To some
men it never comes; let them rest and be thankful! To me, you brought
it; on me, you forced it; and the bottom of this raging sea,' striking
himself upon the breast, 'has been heaved up ever since.'

'Mr Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be
better for you and better for me. Let us find my brother.'

'Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in