house, were full of a deep purple fog, through which shone out, with a
dull and brazen gleam, the lights of lamps and passing carriages. Above
them, the sky was but a pall or vapour; the air, charged with the
emotions, the struggling energy, the cruelty, confusion, painfulness,
and unceasing agitation of life in a vast city, was damp and stifling; a
noise of traffic--as loud but not so terrible as a breaking
storm--destroyed the peace of night; there were foot passengers of every
age and description moving like rooks in the wind, over the pavement,
and vehicles filled with men and women--an irremediable pilgrimage
bound, for the greater part, on pleasure. Robert felt that he would have
given gladly the treasures of a universe for just the time to think a
little while of his own love. So far that great attachment had brought
him aberrations, sorrow, and perplexities; all its sweetness had flown,
moth-like, into his heart, there to be burnt--burnt yet left unburied:
all its happiness had glorified his life against his will; all its
beauty had been starved with a pitiless rigour. What then had remained?
A certain state of mind--a passionate resignation to its own
indomitable cravings. And now on the eve of his marriage--a marriage
never so much as imagined, far less hoped for--he could not have the
leisure to behold, through tears of relief, the complete transformation
of his destiny--once so frightful, now so joyous. The theatre was
crowded, and when the two young men entered their box the burlesque was
at the beginning of the second act. The scene represented an orange
grove by moonlight, and a handsome girl in spangled muslin was
whispering loudly, to an accompaniment of harps, her eternal fidelity to
a gesticulating troubadour. Both performers were immensely popular, and
the duet, with its refrain--

"Love, I will love thee always,
For ever is not too long;
Love, e'en in dark and dreary days,
This shall be my one song,"

was repeated three times to the smiling, serene, and thoroughly
convinced audience. Reckage, who attended public places of amusement
solely from the desire of exhibiting himself, gave but a side-glance at
the stage and turned his opera glass upon the auditorium.

"Really, town is very full," said he; "I suppose many of them are up for
the Hauconberg wedding. There's old Cliddesdon--just look at him. Did
you ever see such an infernal ass? Hullo! I thought that Millie
Warfield wo