And now arose the puzzle, what to do with Elsley?  He had set his heart on going down to Whitbury the next day.  He had been in England nearly six months, and had not yet seen his father; his heart yearned, too, after the old place, and Mark Armsworth, and many an old friend, whom he might never see again.  “However, that fellow I must see to, come what will:  business first and pleasure afterwards.  If I make him all right—­ if I even get him out of the world decently, I get the Scoutbush interest on my side—­though I believe I have it already.  Still, it’s as well to lay people under as heavy an obligation as possible.  I wish Miss Valencia had asked me whether Elsley wanted any money:  it’s expensive keeping him myself.  However, poor thing, she has other matters to think of:  and I dare say, never knew the pleasures of an empty purse.  Here we are!  Three-and-sixpence—­eh, cabman?  I suppose you think I was born Saturday night?  There’s three shillings.  Now, don’t chaff me, my excellent friend, or you will find you have met your match, and a leetle more!”

And Tom hurried into his rooms, and found Elsley still sleeping.

He set to work, packing and arranging, for with him every moment found its business:  and presently heard his patient call faintly from the next room.

“Thurnall!” said he; “I have been a long journey.  I have been to Whitbury once more, and followed my father about his garden, and sat upon my mother’s knee.  And she taught me one text, and no more.  Over and over again she said it, as she looked down at me with still sad eyes, the same text which she spoke the day I left her for London.  I never saw her again.  ’By this, my son, be admonished; of making of books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.  Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.  Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.’....  Yes, I will go down to Whitbury, and he a little child once more.  I will take poor lodgings, and crawl out day by day, down the old lanes, along the old river-banks, where I fed my soul with fair and mad dreams, and reconsider it all from the beginning;—­and then die.  No one need know me; and if they do, they need not be ashamed of me, I trust—­ashamed that a poet has risen up among them, to speak words which have been heard across the globe.  At least, they need never know my shame—­never know that I have broken the heart of an angel, who gave herself to me, body and soul—­attempted the life of a man whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose—­never know that I have killed my own child!—­that a blacker brand than Cain’s is on my brow!—­Never know—­Oh, my God, what care I?  Let them know all, as long as I can have done with shams and affectations, dreams, and vain ambitions, and he just my own self once more, for one day, and then die!”

And he burst into convulsive weeping.