Lancelot but a few days after his departure, in which he told me
where his uncle's house was, and bade me write to him there, and burnt
it in the flame of a candle. As I tossed the charred paper out into the
street I thought to myself that now indeed I was alone and free to be
miserable in my own way. And I was miserable, and made my poor mother
miserable; and acted like the selfish dog I was, like the selfish dog
that every lad is under the venom of a first love-pang.

I went no more to the Skull and Spectacles; I saw my beautiful tyrant no
more. One day I drifted along in the familiar direction, came to the
point where I could see the evil-favoured inn standing alone in the
dreary waste, hesitated for a moment, and then, as the image of the girl
in the sailor's arms surged up before my mind, I turned and ran back as
hard as I could into the town.

But if I went that way no more, I drifted about in other ways helplessly
and foolishly enough.

I would spend hours upon hours mooning among the downs and on the
cliffs, and sometimes I would sit on some bulkhead by the quays and look
at the big ships, and wish myself on board one of them and sailing into
the sunset. Love for my mother kept me from going to the devil, but my
love for her was not strong enough to put a brave face upon my trouble,
and I was not man enough to do my best to make her life light for her.

But no trouble of this kind does endure for ever, and by the end of a
year the poison had in a great degree spent itself, and with my recovery
from my love-ache there grew up in my mind a disdain of my behaviour. As
I saw my mother's visage peaked with pity I grew to be heartily ashamed
of myself, and to resolve honestly and earnestly to make amends. I
disliked tending shop more bitterly than ever. But there was the shop,
and it was dear to my mother's heart; and so I buckled to, if not with a
will, at least with the semblance of a will, and did my best to become
as good a mercer as another.

Two things, however, I would not do. I would not enter into
correspondence with Lancelot, and I would not go any more to Master
Davies's house. Lancelot wrote again and yet again to me. But I served
the second letter as I had served the first, and the third as I had
served the second. I did, indeed, scrawl some few lines of reply to this
last letter, bidding him somewhat bluntly to leave me in peace; that my
bed had been made for me, and that I must needs lie upon it, a