ime I had put seven miles of ground, according to my
calculations, between me and the red-brick house, I began to look upon
the doctor's writing-desk rather in the light of an incumbrance, and
determined to examine it without further delay. Accordingly I picked up
the first large stone I could find in the road, crossed a common, burst
through a hedge, and came to a halt, on the other side, in a thick wood.
Here, finding myself well screened from public view, I broke open the
desk with the help of the stone, and began to look over the contents.

To my unspeakable disappointment I found but few papers of any kind
to examine. The desk was beautifully fitted with all the necessary
materials for keeping up a large correspondence; but there were not
more than half a dozen letters in it altogether. Four were on business
matters, and the other two were of a friendly nature, referring to
persons and things in which I did not feel the smallest interest. I
found besides half a dozen bills receipted (the doctor was a mirror of
punctuality in the payment of tradesmen), note and letter-paper of the
finest quality, clarified pens, a pretty little pin-cushion, two small
account-books filled with the neatest entries, and some leaves
of blotting-paper. Nothing else; absolutely nothing else, in the
treacherous writing-desk on which I had implicitly relied to guide me to
Alicia's hiding-place.

I groaned in sheer wretchedness over the destruction of all my dearest
plans and hopes. If the Bow Street runners had come into the plantation
just as I had completed the rifling of the desk I think I should have
let them take me without making the slightest effort at escape. As it
was, no living soul appeared within sight of me. I must have sat at the
foot of a tree for full half an hour, with the doctor's useless bills
and letters before me, with my head in my hands, and with all my
energies of body and mind utterly crushed by despair.

At the end of the half hour, the natural restlessness of my faculties
began to make itself felt.

Whatever may be said about it in books, no emotion in this world ever
did, or ever will, last for long together. The strong feeling may return
over and over again; but it must have its constant intervals of change
or repose. In real life the bitterest grief doggedly takes its rest and
dries its eyes; the heaviest despair sinks to a certain level, and stops
there to give hope a chance of rising, in spite of us. Even