th of will left
to go back to his purpose of getting his luggage and starting for
Liverpool.

Between six and seven he was knocking at the door in Welbeck Street.
He had tried his latch-key, but had found it inefficient. As he was
supposed to be at Liverpool, the door had in fact been locked. At last
it was opened by Lady Carbury herself. He had fallen more than once,
and was soiled with the gutter. Most of my readers will not probably
know how a man looks when he comes home drunk at six in the morning;
but they who have seen the thing will acknowledge that a sorrier sight
cannot meet a mother's eye than that of a son in such a condition.
'Oh, Felix!' she exclaimed.

'It'sh all up,' he said, stumbling in.

'What has happened, Felix?'

'Discovered, and be d---- to it! The old shap'sh stopped ush.' Drunk as
he was, he was able to lie. At that moment the 'old shap' was fast
asleep in Grosvenor Square, altogether ignorant of the plot; and
Marie, joyful with excitement, was getting into the cab in the mews.
'Bettersh go to bed.' And so he stumbled upstairs by daylight, the
wretched mother helping him. She took off his clothes for him and his
boots, and having left him already asleep, she went down to her own
room, a miserable woman.

CHAPTER LI - WHICH SHALL IT BE?

Paul Montague reached London on his return from Suffolk early on the
Monday morning, and on the following day he wrote to Mrs Hurtle. As he
sat in his lodgings, thinking of his condition, he almost wished that
he had taken Melmotte's offer and gone to Mexico. He might at any rate
have endeavoured to promote the railway earnestly, and then have
abandoned it if he found the whole thing false. In such case of course
he would never have seen Hetta Carbury again; but, as things were, of
what use to him was his love,--of what use to him or to her? The kind of
life of which he dreamed, such a life in England as was that of Roger
Carbury, or, as such life would be, if Roger had a wife whom he loved,
seemed to be far beyond his reach. Nobody was like Roger Carbury!
Would it not be well that he should go away, and, as he went, write to
Hetta and bid her marry the best man that ever lived in the world?

But the journey to Mexico was no longer open to him. He had repudiated
the proposition and had quarrelled with Melmotte. It was necessary
that he should immediately take some further step in regard to Mrs
Hurtle. Twice lately he had gone to Islington determi