Amelia do to him if he fairly told
her that he was not minded to marry her? In very truth he had never
promised to do so. He was in no way bound to her, not even by honour.
Honour, indeed, with such as her! But men are cowards before women
until they become tyrants; and are easy dupes, till of a sudden they
recognise the fact that it is pleasanter to be the victimiser than
the victim,--and as easy. There are men, indeed, who never learn the
latter lesson.

But, though the cause for fear was so slight, poor John Eames was
thoroughly afraid. Little things which, in connection with so deep
a sorrow as his, it is almost ridiculous to mention, added to his
embarrassments, and made an escape from them seem to him to be
impossible. He could not return to London without going to Burton
Crescent, because his clothes were there, and because he owed to Mrs
Roper some small sum of money which on his return to London he would
not have immediately in his pocket. He must therefore meet Amelia,
and he knew that he had not the courage to tell a girl, face to face,
that he did not love her, after he had been once induced to say that
he did do so. His boldest conception did not go beyond the writing
of a letter in which he would renounce her, and removing himself
altogether from that quarter of the town in which Burton Crescent was
situated. But then about his clothes, and that debt of his? And what
if Amelia should in the meantime come down to Guestwick and claim
him? Could he in his mother's presence declare that she had no right
to make such claim? The difficulties, in truth, were not very great,
but they were too heavy for that poor young clerk from the Income-tax
Office.

You will declare that he must have been a fool and a coward. Yet
he could read and understand Shakespeare. He knew much,--by far
too much,--of Byron's poetry by heart. He was a deep critic, often
writing down his criticisms in a lengthy journal which he kept. He
could write quickly, and with understanding; and I may declare that
men at his office had already ascertained that he was no fool. He
knew his business, and could do it,--as many men failed to do who
were much less foolish before the world. And as to that matter of
cowardice, he would have thought it the greatest blessing in the
world to be shut up in a room with Crosbie, having permission to
fight with him till one of them should have been brought by stress
of battle to give up his claim to Lily Dale. Ea