But, despite this comfortable assurance, I was, in the days that followed, an exceedingly miserable young man.  It is all very well to write down troubles of this kind as trivial and sentimental.  They are nothing of the kind.  When a man of an essentially serious nature has found the one woman of all the world who fulfils his highest ideals of womanhood, who is, in fact, a woman in ten thousand, to whom he has given all that he has to give of love and worship, the sudden wreck of all his hopes is no small calamity.  And so I found it.  Resign myself as I would to the bitter reality, the ghost of the might-have-been haunted me night and day, so that I spent my leisure wandering abstractedly about the streets, always trying to banish thought and never for an instant succeeding.  A great unrest was upon me; and when I received a letter from Dick Barnard announcing his arrival at Madeira, homeward bound, I breathed a sigh of relief.  I had no plans for the future, but I longed to be rid of the, now irksome, routine of the practice—­to be free to come and go when and how I pleased.

One evening, as I sat consuming with little appetite my solitary supper, there fell on me a sudden sense of loneliness.  The desire that I had hitherto felt to be alone with my own miserable reflections gave place to a yearning for human companionship.  That, indeed, which I craved for most was forbidden, and I must abide by my lady’s wishes; but there were my friends in the Temple.  It was more than a week since I had seen them; in fact, we had not met since the morning of that unhappiest day of my life.  They would be wondering what had become of me.  I rose from the table, and, having filled my pouch from a tin of tobacco, set forth for King’s Bench Walk.

As I approached the entry of No. 5A in the gathering darkness I met Thorndyke himself emerging, encumbered with two deck-chairs, a reading-lantern, and a book.

“Why, Berkeley!” he exclaimed, “is it indeed thou?  We have been wondering what had become of you.”

“It is a long time since I looked you up,” I admitted.

He scrutinised me attentively by the light of the entry lamp, and then remarked:  “Fetter Lane doesn’t seem to be agreeing with you very well, my son.  You are looking quite thin and peaky.”

“Well, I’ve nearly done with it.  Barnard will be back in about ten days.  His ship is putting in at Madeira to coal and take in some cargo, and then he is coming home.  Where are you going with those chairs?”

“I am going to sit down at the end of the Walk by the garden railings.  It’s cooler there than indoors.  If you will wait a moment I will fetch another chair for Jervis, though he won’t be back for a little while.”  He ran up the stairs, and presently returned with a third chair, and we carried our impedimenta down to the quiet corner at the bottom of the Walk.

“So your term of servitude is coming to an end,” said he when we had placed the chairs and hung the lantern on the railings.  “Any other news?”