ceedings
occupied so long that it struck eleven o'clock at night as he came out
at the Hospital Gate. He had hired a lodging for the present in Covent
Garden, and he took the nearest way to that quarter, by Snow Hill and
Holborn.

Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last
adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally, he
could not walk on thinking for ten minutes without recalling Flora.
She necessarily recalled to him his life, with all its misdirection and
little happiness.

When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he
had stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened
forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by
which he had come to that stage in his existence. So long, so bare,
so blank. No childhood; no youth, except for one remembrance; that one
remembrance proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly.

It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another.
For, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained
Reality on being proved--was obdurate to the sight and touch, and
relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness--the one tender
recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted
away. He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed
with waking eyes, but he had not felt it then; and he had now.

He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep-rooted
in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had
been without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him
to be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred in coldness and
severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart.
Bred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of
reserving the making of man in the image of his Creator to the making of
his Creator in the image of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge
not, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity.

And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel
selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue
had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore
it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in
appearance, to the basest elements. A disappointed mind he had, but a
mind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air. Leaving himself in
the da