It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to Varick-street after all, and take a fresh start.  Then I began to think how I should get back, on which side must I go to find the cars—­where was I, literally.  Then I sat down to wait, till I should see some policeman, or some kind-looking person, near me, to whom I could apply for this very necessary information.  In the meantime I took out my purse to see if I had the proper change.  Verily, not that, nor any change at all!  My heart actually stood still.  Yes, it was very true:  I had given away, right and left, during this Lent:  caring nothing for money, and being very sure of more when this was gone.  I was literally penniless.  I had not even the money to ride home in the cars.

Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the most remarkable experiences of life.  To know where you can get money, to feel that there is some dernier ressort however hateful to you, is one thing; but to know that you have not a cent—­not a prospect of getting one—­not a hope of earning one—­no means of living—­this is suffocation.  This is the stopping of that breath that keeps the world alive.

The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those pretty, little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake.  I looked down into the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap, and remembered vaguely the many narratives I had seen in the newspapers about unaccounted-for and unknown suicides.  I could see how it might be inevitable—­a sort of pressure, a fatality that might not be resisted.  Even cowardice might be overcome when that pressure was put on.

It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means of getting even eightpence:  it chokes you:  you feel as if the wheel had made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again.  It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others.  You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.

For myself, this was my reflection:  I had not even a shelter for my head; Richard had said so.  I had not a cent of money, and I had no means of earning any.  The uncle who was coming to take possession of the house and furniture, was one whom I had been taught to distrust and dread.  He would, perhaps, not even let me go into my room again, and would turn me out to-morrow, if he came:  my clothes—­were they even mine, or would they be given to me, if they were?  This uncle had reproached Uncle Leonard once for what he had done for me.  I had even an idea that it was about my mother’s marriage that the quarrel had occurred.  And hard as I had regarded Uncle Leonard, he had been the soft-hearted one of the brothers, who had sheltered the little girl (after he had thrown off the mother, and broken her poor heart).

The house in Varick-street would be broken up.  What would become of the cook, and Ann Coddle?  It would be easier for them to live than for me.