, and yet the blow had not fallen.
It was not in Philip's nature to "cheer up," or "expect the best,"
or "hope against hope," or to adopt any of the cheap remedies which
shallow souls enjoy and prescribe. Nothing but certainty could give
him ease, and certainty was in this case impossible. Nervousness,
restlessness, fidgetiness, increased upon him day by day. The gossip
and bustle of the House of Commons became intolerable to him. Society
he had never entered since Grey sailed for the Crimea. As in boyhood,
so again now, he felt that Nature was the only true consoler, and for
weeks at a time he tried to bury himself in the wilds of Scotland
or Cumberland or Cornwall, spending his whole day in solitary walks,
with Wordsworth or the _Imitatio_ for a companion, and sleeping
only from physical exhaustion.

In the early part of 1856 the newspapers began to talk of peace.
Sebastopol had fallen, and Russia was said to be exhausted. The
Emperor of the French had his own reasons for withdrawing from
the contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of Lord
Palmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of his
prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous
apprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatter
of irresponsible clubmen and M.P.'s was an insupportable affliction;
so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, and
departed on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himself
off as completely as possible from his usual environment, he left
no address at his lodgings, but told his servant that when he wanted
his letters he would telegraph for them from the place, whatever
it might be, where he was halting. He kept steadily to his plan,
wandering over hill and dale, by lake and river, and steeping his
soul in "the cheerful silence of the fells." When he lighted on a
spot which particularly took his fancy, he would halt there for
two or three days, and would send what in those day was called
"a telegraphic despatch" from the nearest town. In response to
the despatch he would receive from his servant in Mount Street
a package containing all the letters which had been accumulating
during the fortnight or three weeks since he last telegraphed.
One day in April, when he opened the customary package, he found
in it a letter from Arthur Grey.

"The General has just told us that peace is practically settled.
If this proves true, you will not get anot