think, the most maddening thought of all. I had now become the
possessor of Wilderspin's picture 'Faith and Love,' having bought it
of the Bond Street dealer to whom it belonged; and also of the
'Christabel' picture, and these I was constantly looking at as they
hung up on the walls of my room. After a while, however, I destroyed
the 'Christabel' picture, it was too painful. Though I would not see
such friends as I had, I read their letters; indeed, it was these
same letters which alone could draw from me a grim smile now and
then.

Almost every letter ended by urging me, in order to flee from my
sorrows, to travel! With the typical John Bull travelling seems to be
always the panacea. In sorrow, John's herald of peace is Baedeker:
the dispenser of John's true nepenthe is Mr. Murray. Pity and love
for Winifred pursued me, tortured me nigh unto death, and therefore
did these friends of mine seem to suppose that I wanted to flee from
my pity and sorrow! Why, to flee from my sorrow, to get free of my
pity, to flee from the agonies that went nigh to tearing soul from
body, would have been to flee from all that I had left of
life--memory.

Did I want to flee from Winnie? Why, memory was Winnie now; and did
I want to flee from _her_? And yet it was memory that was goading me
on to the verge of madness. No doubt the reader thinks me a weak
creature for allowing the passion of pity to sap my manhood in this
fashion. But it was not so much her death as the manner of her death
that withered my heart and darkened my soul. The calamities which
fell upon her, grievous beyond measure, unparalleled, not to be
thought of save with a pallor of cheek and a shudder of the flesh,
were ever before me, mocking me--maddening me.

'Died in a hovel!' As I gave voice to this impeachment of Heaven,
night after night, wandering up and down the streets, my brain was
being scorched and withered by those same thoughts of anger against
destiny and most awful revolt which had appalled me when first I saw
how the curse of Heaven or the whim of Circumstance had been
fulfilled.

Then came that passionate yearning for death, which grief such as
mine must needs bring. But if what Materialism teaches were true,
suicide would rob me even of my memory of her. If, on the other hand,
what I had been taught by the supernaturalism of my ancestors were
true, to commit suicide might be but to play finally into the hands
of that same unknown pitiless power with