o head for seeing anybody now. Emilia"--was the
simple signature, perused over and over again by this maddened lover,
under the flitting gate-lamp, after Tracy had left him. The coldness of
Emilia's name so briefly given, concentrated every fire in his heart.
What was it but miserable cowardice, he thought, that prevented him from
getting the peace poor Barrett had found? Intolerable anguish weakened
his limbs. He flung himself on a wayside bank, grovelling, to rise again
calm and quite ready for society, upon the proper application of the
clothes-brush. Indeed; he patted his shoulder and elbow to remove the
soil of his short contact with earth, and tried a cigar: but the first
taste of the smoke sickened his lips. Then he stood for a moment as
a man in a new world. This strange sensation of disgust with familiar
comforting habits, fixed him in perplexity, till a rushing of wild
thoughts and hopes from brain to heart, heart to brain, gave him
insight, and he perceived his state, and that for all he held to in
our life he was dependent upon another; which is virtually the curse of
love.

"And he passed along the road," adds the Philosopher, "a weaker man, a
stronger lover. Not that love should diminish manliness or gains by so
doing; but travelling to love by the ways of Sentiment, attaining to the
passion bit by bit, does full surely take from us the strength of our
nature, as if (which is probable) at every step we paid fee to move
forward. Wilfrid had just enough of the coin to pay his footing. He was
verily fining himself down. You are tempted to ask what the value of
him will be by the time that he turns out pure metal? I reply, something
considerable, if by great sacrifice he gets to truth--gets to that
oneness of feeling which is the truthful impulse. At last, he will stand
high above them that have not suffered. The rejection of his cigar."

This wages too absurd. At the risk of breaking our partnership for ever,
I intervene. My Philosopher's meaning is plain, and, as usual, good;
but not even I, who have less reason to laugh at him than anybody, can
gravely accept the juxtaposition of suffering and cigars. And, moreover,
there is a little piece of action in store.

Wilfrid had walked half way to Brookfield, when the longing to look
upon the Richford chamber-windows stirred so hotly within him that he
returned to the gates. He saw Captain Gambier issuing on horseback
from under the lamp. The captain remarked th