Misfortunes rain upon us from every quarter of the sky, but so long as they come from the sky we can bear them, for they are beyond the control of our own volition, and must be accepted, as we accept the gale or the lightning.  It is the troubles which spring from our own folly and weakness, or from that of those with whom our lives are intertwined, which really crush us.  Now Arthur knew enough of the world to be aware that there is no folly to equal that of a woman who, of her own free will, truly loving one man whom she can marry if she will sit, deliberately gives herself to another.  It is not only a folly, it is a crime, and, like most crimes, for this life, an irretrievable mistake.

Long before he got back to London, the first unwholesome exaltation of mind that always follows a great misfortune, and which may perhaps be compared with the excitement that for awhile covers the shameful sense of defeat in an army, had evaporated, and he began to realize the crushing awfulness of the blow which had fallen on him, and to fear lest it should drive him mad.  He looked round his little horizon for some straw of comfort at which to catch, and could find none; nothing but dreadful thoughts and sickening visions.

And then suddenly, just as he was sinking into the dulness of despair, there came, like the fist gleam of light in chaotic darkness, the memory of Mildred Carr.  Truly she had spoken prophetically.  His idol had been utterly cast down and crushed to powder by a hand stronger than his own.  He would go to her in his suffering; perhaps she could find means to comfort him.

When he reached town he took a hansom and went to look for some rooms; he would not return to those he had left on the previous afternoon, for the sympathetic landlord had helped him to pack up the wedding clothes and had admired the wedding gift.  Arthur felt that he could not face him again.  He found some to suit him in Duke Street, St. James, and left his things there.  Thence he drove to Fenchurch Street and took a passage to Madeira.  The clerk, the same one who had given him his ticket about a year before, remembered him perfectly, and asked him how he got on with Mrs. Carr.  But when his passage was taken he was disgusted to find that the mail did not sail for another five days.  He looked at his watch, it was only half-past one o’clock.  He could scarcely believe what had happened had only occurred that morning, only seven hours ago.  It seemed to him that he had stood face to face with Angela, not that morning, but years ago, and miles away, on some desolate shore which lay on the other side of a dead ocean of pain.  And yet it was only seven hours!  If the hours went with such heavy wings, how would the days pass, and the months, and the years?

What should he do with himself?  In his condition perpetual activity was as necessary to him as air, he must do something to dull the sharp edge of his suffering, or the sword of madness which hung over him by such a slender thread would fall.  Suddenly he bethought him of a man whom he had known slightly up at Cambridge, a man of wealth and evil reputation.  This man would, he felt, be able to put him in a way of getting through his time.  He knew his address and thither he drove.