hip
could be quite intolerable; of his illness and absence, and my gradual
yielding to frivolity and extravagance; then of his return and
confidence in me. Would that he had never told me that wretched secret!
If he had only known to whom he was telling it, to what a pitiful,
weak, vain nature he was confiding it, he would have bitten his tongue
off before he did it, and I should have yet been comparatively happy!

But the evil was done now, and what power on earth could undo it?

I slunk home to Beadle Square when I imagined every one else would be in
bed.

Mrs Nash met me at the door.

"Your friend Smith's gone," she said.

"Gone!" I exclaimed. "Where?"

"How should I know? He paid his bill and took off his traps two hours
ago, and says he's not coming back!"

You may guess, reader, whether I slept that night.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

HOW I TRIED TO FORGET MY FRIEND SMITH, AND FAILED.

When I rose next morning I was nearly ill with misery and remorse. The
thought of Jack had haunted me all night long. I entertained all sorts
of forebodings as to what had become of him and what was to be the
result of my treachery to him. I pictured him gone forth alone and
friendless into the world, hoping to lose himself in London, giving up
all hope of a successful career, with his name gone and his prospects
blighted, and all my fault. Poor Jack! I might never see him again,
never even hear of him again!

As to hearing of him, however, I soon found that in one sense I was
likely to hear a good deal of him, now he was gone from Beadle Square.
Horncastle and his particular friends appeared that morning at breakfast
in a state of the greatest jubilation.

"Well, that's what I call a jolly good riddance of bad rubbish,"
Horncastle was saying as I entered the room. "I thought we'd make the
place too hot for him at last!"

"Yes, it was a job, though, to get rid of him."

"Bless you," said Horncastle, with the air of a hero, "a man doesn't
like hurting a fellow's feelings, you know, or we could have told him
straight off he was a beast. It was much better to let him see we
didn't fancy him, and let him clear out of his own accord."

"Yes, much better," answered a toady friend; "you managed it very well,
Horn, so you did."

"You see, when a fellow's a sneak and a cad he's sure to be
uncomfortable among a lot of gentlemen," said Horncastle, by way of
enlarging on the interesting topic.

If I had not been s