er matters to think
of: and I dare say, never knew the pleasures of an empty purse. Here we
are! Three-and-sixpence--eh, cabman? I suppose you think I was born
Saturday night? There's three shillings. Now, don't chaff me, my
excellent friend, or you will find you have met your match, and a leetle
more!"

And Tom hurried into his rooms, and found Elsley still sleeping.

He set to work, packing and arranging, for with him every moment found
its business: and presently heard his patient call faintly from the next
room.

"Thurnall!" said he; "I have been a long journey. I have been to
Whitbury once more, and followed my father about his garden, and sat
upon my mother's knee. And she taught me one text, and no more. Over and
over again she said it, as she looked down at me with still sad eyes,
the same text which she spoke the day I left her for London. I never saw
her again. 'By this, my son, be admonished; of making of books there is
no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the
conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments; for
this is the whole duty of man.'.... Yes, I will go down to Whitbury,
and he a little child once more. I will take poor lodgings, and crawl
out day by day, down the old lanes, along the old river-banks, where I
fed my soul with fair and mad dreams, and reconsider it all from the
beginning;--and then die. No one need know me; and if they do, they
need not be ashamed of me, I trust--ashamed that a poet has risen up
among them, to speak words which have been heard across the globe. At
least, they need never know my shame--never know that I have broken the
heart of an angel, who gave herself to me, body and soul--attempted the
life of a man whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose--never know that I
have killed my own child!--that a blacker brand than Cain's is on my
brow!--Never know--Oh, my God, what care I? Let them know all, as long
as I can have done with shams and affectations, dreams, and vain
ambitions, and he just my own self once more, for one day, and then
die!"

And he burst into convulsive weeping.

"No, Tom, do not comfort me! I ought to die, and I shall die. I cannot
face her again; let her forget me, and find a husband who will--and be a
father to the children whom I neglected! Oh, my darlings, my darlings!
If I could but see you once again: but no! you too would ask me where I
had been so long. You too would ask me--your innocent faces at l