himself, and might as well
take care of his pride, since he had not much else to take care of. So
he attempted no persuasion, but simply sent any Fordborough news and
forwarded occasional letters from Mrs. Middleton and Sissy. As the
autumn wore on, Percival began to feel strange as he opened the
envelopes and saw the handwriting which belonged to his old life. He had
an absurd idea that the letters should not have come to _him_--that his
former self, the self Sissy had known, was gone. He read her letters by
the light of what Hammond had told him, and saw the delicate wording by
which she tried to show her sympathy, yet almost repelled his
confidence. She was so anxious not to thrust herself into his
secrets--it was so evident that she would not be troublesome, but would
wait with shut eyes, as Hammond had said, for a birthday surprise and
triumph! O poor little Sissy! O faith which he felt within himself no
strength to vindicate! He answered her in carefully weighed sentences,
and smiled as he wrote them down because they amused him--a smile sadder
than tears. Percival Thorne was dead, and he was some one else, trying
to think what Percival would have said, and to hide his death from
Sissy, lest her heart should break for pity.

It was very foolish? Yes. But if you had parted yourself from every one
you knew; if for five months you had never heard a friendly word; if you
had a secret to hide and a part to play; if you lived alone, surrounded
by faces of people with whom you had no faintest touch of
sympathy--faces which were to you like those of swarming Chinese or men
and women in a nightmare,--perhaps you might have some thoughts and
fancies less calm and less rational than of old. And the more changed
Percival felt himself, the more he shrank from the friends he had left.

November came. One day he looked at the date on the office almanac and
remembered that it was exactly a year since he went down to Brackenhill
and heard of old Bridgman's death. He could not repress a short sudden
laugh. It was half under his breath, but his neighbor, who was at that
moment gazing fiercely into space and turning a sentence, heard it, and
felt that it was in mockery of him. Percival was thinking how seriously
he had considered that important question, "Would he stand as the
Liberal candidate for Fordborough?" Percival Thorne, Esq., M.P.! He
might well laugh as he sat at his desk filling in a bundle of notices.
But from that momen