The human animal in extreme misery becomes self-reliant, and Hubert hardly thought of making application to his uncle.  The last time he had applied for help his letter had remained unanswered, and he now felt that he must make his own living or die.  And, quite indifferent as to what might befall him, he walked next day to the Victoria Docks.  He did not know where or how to apply for work, and he tired himself in fruitless endeavour.  At last he felt he could strive with fate no longer, and wandered mile after mile, amused and forgetful of his own misery in the spectacle of the river—­the rose sky, the long perspectives, the houses and warehouses showing in fine outline, and then the wonderful blue night gathering in the forest of masts and rigging.  He was admirably patient.  There was no fretfulness in his soul, nor did he rail against the world’s injustice, but took his misfortunes with sweet gentleness.

He slept in a public-house, and next day resumed his idle search for employment.  The weather was mild and beautiful, his wants were simple, a cup of coffee and a roll, a couple of sausages, and the day passed in a sort of morose and passionless contemplation.  He thought of everything and nothing, least of all of how he should find money for the morrow.  When the day came, and the penny to buy a cup of coffee was wanting, he quite naturally, without giving it a second thought, engaged himself as a labourer, and worked all day carrying sacks of grain out of a vessel’s hold.  For a large part of his nature was patient and simple, docile as an animal’s.  There was in him so much that was rudimentary, that in accepting this burden of physical toil he was acting not in contradiction to, but in full and perfect harmony with, his true nature.

But at the end of a week his health began to give way, and, like a man after a violent debauch, he thought of returning to a more normal existence.  He had left the manuscript of his unfortunate play in the North.  Had they destroyed it?  The involuntary fear of the writer for his child made him smile.  What did it matter?  Clearly the first thing to do would be to write to the editor of The Cosmopolitan, and ask if he could find him some employment, something certain; writing occasional articles for newspapers, that he couldn’t do.

Hubert had saved twelve shillings.  He would therefore be able to pay his landlady:  he smiled—­one of his landladies!  The earlier debt was now hopelessly out of his reach, and seemed to represent a social plane from which he had for ever fallen.  If he had succeeded in getting that play right, what a difference it would have made!  He would have been able to do a number of things he had never done, things which he had always desired to do.  He had desired above all to travel—­to see France and Italy; to linger, to muse in the shadows of the world’s past; and after this he had desired marriage, an English wife, an English home, beautiful children, leisure, the society of friends.  A successful play would have given him all these things, and now his dream must remain for ever unrealised by him.  He had sunk out of sight and hearing of such life.