shed from her very infancy and her
better angel made a demon. She told him the whole truth about her
marriage to Bounderby--that she had married him solely for the
advancement of Tom, the only one she had ever loved--and that now she
could no longer live with her husband or bear the life she had made for
herself.

And when she had said this, Louisa, the daughter his "system" had
brought to such despair, fell at his feet.

At her pitiful tale the tender heart that Mr. Gradgrind had buried in
his long-past youth under his mountain of facts stirred again and began
to beat. The mountain crumbled away, and he saw in an instant, as by a
lightning flash, that the plan of life to which he had so rigidly held
was a complete and hideous failure. He had thought there was but one
wisdom, that of the head; he knew at last that there was a deeper wisdom
of the heart also, which all these years he had denied!

When she came to herself, Louisa found her father sitting by her
bedside. His face looked worn and older. He told her he realized at last
his life mistake and bitterly reproached himself. Sissy, too, was there,
her love shining like a beautiful light on the other's darkness. She
knelt beside the bed and laid the weary head on her breast, and then for
the first time Louisa burst into sobs.

Next day Sissy sought out Harthouse, who was waiting, full of sulky
impatience at the failure of Louisa to appear as he had expected. Sissy
told him plainly what had occurred, and that he should never see Louisa
again. Harthouse, realizing that his plan had failed, suddenly
discovered that he had a great liking for camels, and left the same hour
for Egypt, never to return to Coketown.

It was while Sissy was absent on this errand of her own that the furious
Bounderby and the triumphant Mrs. Sparsit, the latter voiceless and
still sneezing, appeared at Stone Lodge.

Mr. Gradgrind took the mill owner greatly aback with the statement that
Louisa had had no intention whatever of eloping and was then in that
same house and under his care. Angry and blustering at being made such a
fool of, Bounderby turned on Mrs. Sparsit, but in her disappointment at
finding it a mistake, she had dissolved in tears. When Mr. Gradgrind
told him he had concluded it would be better for Louisa to remain for
some time there with him, Bounderby flew into a still greater rage and
stamped off, swearing his wife should come home by noon next day or not
at all.

To