when I left London.

While I was still in doubt, my earliest impressions of childhood came
back to my memory; and influenced by them, I thought of Cornwall. My
nurse had been a Cornish woman; my first fancies and first feelings of
curiosity had been excited by her Cornish stories, by the descriptions
of the scenery, the customs, and the people of her native land, with
which she was ever ready to amuse me. As I grew older, it had always
been one of my favourite projects to go to Cornwall, to explore the wild
western land, on foot, from hill to hill throughout. And now, when no
motive of pleasure could influence my choice--now, when I was going
forth homeless and alone, in uncertainty, in grief, in peril--the old
fancy of long-past days still kept its influence, and pointed out my new
path to me among the rocky boundaries of the Cornish shore.

My last night in London was a night made terrible by Mannion's fearful
image in all my dreams--made mournful, in my waking moments, by thoughts
of the morrow which was to separate me from Clara. But I never faltered
in my resolution to leave London for her sake. When the morning came,
I collected my few necessaries, added to them one or two books, and was
ready to depart.

My way through the streets took me near my father's house. As I passed
by the well-remembered neighbourhood, my self-control so far deserted
me, that I stopped and turned aside into the Square, in the hope of
seeing Clara once more before I went away. Cautiously and doubtfully,
as if I was a trespasser even on the public pavement, I looked up at
the house which was no more my home--at the windows, side by side, of my
sister's sitting-room and bed-room. She was neither standing near them,
nor passing accidentally from one room to another at that moment. Still
I could not persuade myself to go on. I thought of many and many an
act of kindness that she had done for me, which I seemed never to have
appreciated until now--I thought of what she had suffered, and might yet
suffer, for my sake--and the longing to see her once more, though only
for an instant, still kept me lingering near the house and looking up
vainly at the lonely windows.

It was a bright, cool, autumnal morning; perhaps she might have gone out
into the garden of the square: it used often to be her habit, when I was
at home, to go there and read at this hour. I walked round, outside the
railings, searching for her between gaps in the foliage; and h