and gone.
If he does you'll have him out on a petition. Let us have
an answer as soon as possible.

He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he
replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length
of the pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one
belonging to him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left
desolate. He could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a
man in all the world who had a more perfect right to play a trick
with his own prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his
money, who could blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that,
when he should have thrown up his place and spent all his money,
there would remain to him his own self to be disposed of in a manner
that might be very awkward to him. A man owes it to his country, to
his friends, even to his acquaintance, that he shall not be known to
be going about wanting a dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It
is very well for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that
having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it
is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when
he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it.
Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a
man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and
may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that
it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a
canon set, which some men still fear to disobey.

The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his
present niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his
safety there were material comforts. He had more than enough for his
wants. His work was light: he lived among men and women with whom he
was popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused
him to be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the
Irish capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives
of judges smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk
of those wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so
treated as to make him feel that he was somebody in the world of
Dublin. Now he was invited to give all this up; and for what?

He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence. The
reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he liked
best. It wa