So much for the commencement of this long whim-wham.  After the initial conception and the stirring up of the man’s sluggish temperament to put it in practice, the whole matter evolves itself in a natural train.  We may suppose him, as the result of deep deliberation, buying a new wig of reddish hair and selecting sundry garments, in a fashion unlike his customary suit of brown, from a Jew’s old-clothes bag.  It is accomplished:  Wakefield is another man.  The new system being now established, a retrograde movement to the old would be almost as difficult as the step that placed him in his unparalleled position.  Furthermore, he is rendered obstinate by a sulkiness occasionally incident to his temper and brought on at present by the inadequate sensation which he conceives to have been produced in the bosom of Mrs. Wakefield.  He will not go back until she be frightened half to death.  Well, twice or thrice has she passed before his sight, each time with a heavier step, a paler cheek and more anxious brow, and in the third week of his non-appearance he detects a portent of evil entering the house in the guise of an apothecary.  Next day the knocker is muffled.  Toward nightfall comes the chariot of a physician and deposits its big-wigged and solemn burden at Wakefield’s door, whence after a quarter of an hour’s visit he emerges, perchance the herald of a funeral.  Dear woman! will she die?

By this time Wakefield is excited to something like energy of feeling, but still lingers away from his wife’s bedside, pleading with his conscience that she must not be disturbed at such a juncture.  If aught else restrains him, he does not know it.  In the course of a few weeks she gradually recovers.  The crisis is over; her heart is sad, perhaps, but quiet, and, let him return soon or late, it will never be feverish for him again.  Such ideas glimmer through the mist of Wakefield’s mind and render him indistinctly conscious that an almost impassable gulf divides his hired apartment from his former home.  “It is but in the next street,” he sometimes says.  Fool! it is in another world.  Hitherto he has put off’ his return from one particular day to another; henceforward he leaves the precise time undetermined—­not to-morrow; probably next week; pretty soon.  Poor man!  The dead have nearly as much chance of revisiting their earthly homes as the self-banished Wakefield.

Would that I had a folio to write, instead of an article of a dozen pages!  Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity.

Wakefield is spellbound.  We must leave him for ten years or so to haunt around his house without once crossing the threshold, and to be faithful to his wife with all the affection of which his heart is capable, while he is slowly fading out of hers.  Long since, it must be remarked, he has lost the perception of singularity in his conduct.