time for him to go.

"Hang it, stay to see The Bravo of the Battle-Axe," Foker said,
"Bingley's splendid in it; he wears red tights, and has to carry Mrs. B.
over the Pine-bridge of the Cataract, only she's too heavy. It's great
fun, do stop."

Pen looked at the bill with one lingering fond hope that Miss
Fotheringay's name might be hidden, somewhere, in the list of the actors
of the after-piece, but there was no such name. Go he must. He had a
long ride home. He squeezed Foker's hand. He was choking to speak, but
he couldn't. He quitted the theatre and walked frantically about the
town, he knew not how long; then he mounted at the George and rode
homewards, and Clavering clock sang out one as he came into the yard
at Fairoaks. The lady of the house might have been awake, but she only
heard him from the passage outside his room as he dashed into bed and
pulled the clothes over his head.

Pen had not been in the habit of passing wakeful nights, so he at once
fell off into a sound sleep. Even in later days and with a great deal
of care and other thoughtful matter to keep him awake, a man from long
practice or fatigue or resolution begins by going to sleep as usual:
and gets a nap in advance of Anxiety. But she soon comes up with him and
jogs his shoulder, and says, "Come, my man, no more of this laziness,
you must wake up and have a talk with me." Then they fall to together in
the midnight. Well, whatever might afterwards happen to him, poor little
Pen was not come to this state yet; he tumbled into a sound sleep--did
not wake until an early hour in the morning, when the rooks began to
caw from the little wood beyond his bedroom windows; and--at that very
instant and as his eyes started open, the beloved image was in his mind.
"My dear boy," he heard her say, "you were in a sound sleep and I would
not disturb you: but I have been close by your pillow all this while:
and I don't intend that you shall leave me. I am Love! I bring with me
fever and passion: wild longing, maddening desire; restless craving and
seeking. Many a long day ere this I heard you calling out for me; and
behold now I am come."

Was Pen frightened at the summons? Not he. He did not know what was
coming: it was all wild pleasure and delight as yet. And as, when three
years previously, and on entering the fifth form at the Cistercians, his
father had made him a present of a gold watch which the boy took from
under his pillow and examined on the insta