the first that she could not understand me;
that she would go back to her own! Let her go! I will forget her, and
the world, and everything--and I know how!"

And springing up, he walked across to the druggist's shop.

Years before, Elsley had tried opium, and found, unhappily for him, that
it fed his fancy without inflicting those tortures of indigestion which
keep many, happily for them, from its magic snare. He had tried it more
than once of late: but Lucia had had a hint of the fact from Thurnall;
and in just terror had exacted from him a solemn promise never to touch
opium again. Elsley was a man of honour, and the promise had been kept.
But now--"I promised her, and therefore I will break my promise! She has
broken hers, and I am free!"

And he went in and bought his opium. He took a little on the spot to
allay the cravings of hunger. He reserved a full dose for the
railway-carriage. It would bridge over the weary gulf of time which lay
between him and town.

He took his second-class place at last; not without stares and whispers
from those round at the wild figure which was starting for London,
without bag or baggage. But as the clerks agreed, "If he was running
away from his creditors, it was a shame to stop him. If he was running
from the police, they would have the more sport the longer the run. At
least it was no business of theirs."

There was one thing more to do, and he did it. He wrote to Campbell a
short note.

"If, as I suppose, you expect from me 'the satisfaction of a gentleman,'
you will find me at ... Adelphi. I am not escaping from you but from the
whole world. If, by shooting me you can quicken my escape, you will do
me the first and last favour which I am likely to ask from you."

He posted his letter, settled himself in a corner of the carriage, and
took his second dose of opium. From that moment he recollected little
more. A confused whirl of hedges and woods, rattling stations, screaming
and flashing trains, great red towns, white chalk cuttings; while the
everlasting roar and rattle of the carriages shaped themselves in his
brain into a hundred snatches of old tunes, all full of a strange
merriment, as if mocking at his misery, striving to keep him awake and
conscious of who and what he was. He closed his eyes and shut out the
hateful garish world: but that sound he could not shut out. Too tired to
sleep, too tired even to think, he could do nothing but submit to the
ridiculous torme