ent it now. You can guess how I
have spent it. Pleasant contrast, isn't it? Gives rise to moral
reflections."

"Come, come, Heigham, you must not give way like that. These things
happen to most men in the course of their lives, and if they are wise
it teaches them that gingerbread isn't all gilt, and to set down women
at their proper value, and appreciate a good one if it pleases
Providence to give them one in course of time. Don't you go making a
fool of yourself over this girl's pretty face. Handsome is as handsome
does. These things are hard to bear, I know, but you don't make them
any better by pitching your own reputation after a girl's want of
stability."

"I know that you are quite right, and I am much obliged to you for
your kind advice, but we won't say anything more about it. I suppose
that you can let me have some money?"

"Oh yes, if you want it, though I think we shall have to overdraw.
What do you want? Two hundred? Here is the cheque."

"I am anxious about that young fellow," said Mr. Borley to himself, in
the pause between Arthur's departure and the entry of the next client.
"I hope his disappointment won't send him to the dogs. He is not of
the sort who take it easy, like I did, for instance. Dear me, that is
a long while ago now. I wonder what the details of his little affair
were, and who the girl married. Captain Shuffle! yes, show him in."

CHAPTER LXII

Next morning Arthur cashed his cheque, and started on his travels. He
had no very clear idea why he was going back to Madeira, or what he
meant to do when he got there; but then, at this painful stage of his
existence, none of his ideas could be called clear. Though he did not
realize it, what he was searching for was sympathy, female sympathy of
course; for in trouble members of either sex gravitate instinctively
to the other for comfort. Perhaps they do not quite trust their own,
or perhaps they are afraid of being laughed at.

Arthur's was not one of those natures that can lock their griefs
within the bosom, and let them lie there till in process of time they
shrivel away. Except among members of the peerage, as pictured in
current literature, these stern, proud creatures are not common. Man,
whether he figures in the world as a peer or a hedge-carpenter, is, as
a matter of fact, mentally as well as physically, gregarious, and
adverse to loneliness either in his joys or sorrows.

Decidedly, too, the homo