And as he watched, all his past life rose up before him, ever since he served out medicines fifteen years ago;—­his wild aspirations, heavy labours, struggles, plans, brief triumphs, long disappointments:  and here was what it had all come to,—­a failure,—­a miserable, shameful failure!  Not that he thought of it with repentance, with a single wish that he had done otherwise:  but only with disappointed rage.  “Yes!” he said bitterly to himself—­

  “’We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
  But after come despondency and madness.’

This is the way of the world with all who have nobler feelings in them than will fit into its cold rules.  Curse the world! what on earth had I to do with mixing myself up in it, and marrying a fine lady?  Fool that I was!  I might have known from the first that she could not understand me; that she would go back to her own!  Let her go!  I will forget her, and the world, and everything—­and I know how!”

And springing up, he walked across to the druggist’s shop.

Years before, Elsley had tried opium, and found, unhappily for him, that it fed his fancy without inflicting those tortures of indigestion which keep many, happily for them, from its magic snare.  He had tried it more than once of late:  but Lucia had had a hint of the fact from Thurnall; and in just terror had exacted from him a solemn promise never to touch opium again.  Elsley was a man of honour, and the promise had been kept.  But now—­“I promised her, and therefore I will break my promise!  She has broken hers, and I am free!”

And he went in and bought his opium.  He took a little on the spot to allay the cravings of hunger.  He reserved a full dose for the railway-carriage.  It would bridge over the weary gulf of time which lay between him and town.

He took his second-class place at last; not without stares and whispers from those round at the wild figure which was starting for London, without bag or baggage.  But as the clerks agreed, “If he was running away from his creditors, it was a shame to stop him.  If he was running from the police, they would have the more sport the longer the run.  At least it was no business of theirs.”

There was one thing more to do, and he did it.  He wrote to Campbell a short note.

“If, as I suppose, you expect from me ‘the satisfaction of a gentleman,’ you will find me at ...  Adelphi.  I am not escaping from you but from the whole world.  If, by shooting me you can quicken my escape, you will do me the first and last favour which I am likely to ask from you.”