an had intended on
this very afternoon to have gone up to town,--to transact business
with Bozzle; for he still believed, though the aspect of the man was
bitter to him as wormwood, that Bozzle was necessary to him in all
his business. And he still made appointments with the man, sometimes
at Stony Walk, in the Borough, and sometimes at the tavern in
Poulter's Court, even though Bozzle not unfrequently neglected to
attend the summons of his employer. And he would go to his banker's
and draw out money, and then walk about the crowded lanes of the
City, and afterwards return to his desolate lodgings at Willesden,
thinking that he had been transacting business,--and that this
business was exacted from him by the unfortunate position of his
affairs. But now he gave up his journey. His retreat had been
discovered; and there came upon him at once a fear that if he left
the house his child would be taken. His landlady told him on this
very day that the boy ought to be sent to his mother, and had made
him understand that it would not suit her to find a home any longer
for one who was so singular in his proceedings. He believed that his
child would be given up at once, if he were not there to guard it.
He stayed at home, therefore, turning in his mind many schemes. He
had told his wife that he should go either to Italy or to America at
once; but in doing so he had had no formed plan in his head. He had
simply imagined at the moment that such a threat would bring her to
submission. But now it became a question whether he would do better
than go to America. He suggested to himself that he should go to
Canada, and fix himself with his boy on some remote farm,--far away
from any city; and would then invite his wife to join him if she
would. She was too obstinate, as he told himself, ever to yield,
unless she should be absolutely softened and brought down to the
ground by the loss of her child. What would do this so effectually
as the interposition of the broad ocean between him and her? He sat
thinking of this for the rest of the day, and Louey was left to the
charge of the mistress of River's Cottage.

"Do you think he believes it, mamma?" Mrs. Trevelyan said to her
mother when they had already made nearly half their journey home in
the cab. There had been nothing spoken hitherto between them, except
some half-formed words of affection intended for consolation to the
young mother in her great affliction.

"He does not know what