se there. I was the occupant of that garret--it seems but
yesterday since I wanted bread there."

The surgeon was unmanned. He kept his eye upon the melancholy window
until emotion blinded it, and permitted him to see no longer. He stood
transfixed for a second or two, and then spoke quickly.

"Mr Walpole, poverty is horrible! I have courage for any extremity but
that. Pain I have borne--shrieks and moans I have listened to unmoved,
whilst I stood by labouring to remove them; but when I recall the
moments in which I have languished for a crust of bread, and known
mankind to be my enemy--as though, being poor, I was a felon--all hearts
steeled against me--All hearts, did I say?" added the speaker suddenly
checking himself--"I lie; had it been so, I should not have been here to
tell the tale."

The baron paused, and then resumed.

"High as the rank is, Mr Walpole, to which I have attained; brilliant as
my career has been, and I acknowledge my success with gratitude--believe
me, there is not a famished wretch who crawls through the sinks of this
overgrown metropolis, that suffers more than I have suffered, has
bitterer hours than I have undergone. In this city of splendour and
corruption, at whose extremes are experienced the most exquisite
enjoyment and the most crushing and bitter endurance, I have passed
through trials which have before now overborne and killed the stoutest
hearts, and would have annihilated mine, but for the unselfish love of
him whose business took me to the church this day. Misery, in all its
aggravated forms, has been mine. Want of money--of necessary
clothing--hunger--thirst; such things have been familiar to me. In that
room, and in the depth of the hard winter, I have for hours given warmth
to my benumbed fingers with the breath which absolute want enabled me to
draw only with difficulty and pain."

"Is it possible!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"You believe that human strength is unequal to such demands. It is
natural to think so; and yet I speak the truth. My parents, Mr Walpole,
humble and poor, but good and loving, sent me to Paris with all the
money they could afford for my education. I was ambitious, and deemed it
more than enough for my purpose. When half my time was spent here,
unhappily for me both father and mother were carried off by a malignant
fever. It was heavy blow, and threatened my destruction; threatened it,
however, but for a moment. I had determined to arrive at eminence