One morning Desborough went down by the end of the stream.  The water was low, and underneath the roots of a great tree there was a deep hollow that had been scooped out by the torrents of winter.  An odd fancy made Desborough climb down and creep into this cavity under the network of roots.  From the place where he was seated he could not only see the clear water running away seaward, but he could look right up the path that ran among the tall elms.

He was gazing mechanically on the ripples, and had allowed his mind to be hushed into complete vacuity by the delicate babble of the water over the pebbles, when suddenly a flash of colour seemed to grow upon his consciousness, and he saw a man and woman walking together down the very path that led to the cave where he had been dreaming.  He placed his hand to his forehead and tried to think.  It seemed as though his heart had been touched with ice.  He would have called out, but he was stupefied.  After a few long minutes he saw Miss Blanchflower make a sudden movement and give both her hands to her companion.  The two stood face to face, and seemed to be speaking passionately.  Desborough covered his eyes, and would see no more.

How long he sat he never knew; but when he was able to realize his place and to realize the fact of existence, he was alone.  He moaned, and then by one of those revolutions of feeling common to men of his temperament, he broke into laughter.

As he climbed out from his retreat his sense of the tragic turn of things left him, and he laughed still more.

“And I am an eaves-dropper, am I?  Mr. Hamlet Desborough.  And Ophelia’s not talking to her father this time.  What a nice young Polonius we have got—­ambrosial curls Polonius has—­And Ophelia!  Oh!  Ophelia’s very fair—­chaste as an icicle, and pure as snow.”

He walked towards a deep pool that lay further down towards the sea.  The pool was very sullen and cool under the dank shadow of the hanging trees.  Desborough looked a minute into the dark depths.

“Now, Hamlet, let us finish up.  Let me see.  What are the puzzles that I have to solve?  Death?  That’s soon done.  Three minutes, they say, it takes under water.  And that other country where the travellers go and never return?  Well, I don’t see particularly why I should return, and oh!  Ophelia, Ophelia.”

He sat down and looked at the water until gradually his impulse wore off, and his face grew stern.  He muttered no more as he walked home; he passed people in the street, but made no sign; he had revenge, fear, rage, pity, and love in his heart, and his passions were too strong for his will.  Had he not been able to gain solitude there is no knowing what he might have done, for no man does such terrible things, and no man is so utterly reckless as a thoroughly weak individual who is suddenly cast adrift from all his mental holdfasts.

Before night he had written a little note.  These were the words that he wrote:—­