He sought the nearest post-office, and dispatched a telegram to Leonard; “Please let me know immediately your mother’s present address.”  The reply was to be sent to his rooms in Devonshire Street, and thither he straightway betook himself, hoping that in an hour or so he would have news.  An extempore lunch was put before him; never had he satisfied his hunger with less gusto.  Time went on; the afternoon brought him no telegram.  At seven o’clock he lay on his sofa, exhausted by nervous strain, anticipating a hideous night.  Again his thoughts had turned to suicide.  It would be easier to obtain poison here than at Hollingford.  Laudanum?  Death under laudanum must be very easy, mere falling asleep in a sort of intoxication.  But he must leave behind him something in writing, something which would excite attention when it appeared in all the newspapers.  Addressed to the coroner?  No; to his committee.  He would hint to them of a tragic story, of noble powers and ambitions frustrated by the sordid difficulties of life.  The very truth, let malice say what it would.  At his age, with his brain and heart, to perish thus for want of a little money!  As he dwelt on the infinite pathos of the thing, tears welled to his eyes, trickled over his cheek—­

Of a sudden, he started up, and shouted “Come in!” Yes, it was a telegram; he took it from the servant’s hand with an exclamation of joy.  Leonard informed him that Mrs. Woolstan was staying at Gorleston, near Yarmouth, her address “Sunrise Terrace.”  He clutched at a railway guide.  Too late to get to Yarmouth to-night, but that did not matter.  “Sunrise Terrace!” In his sorry state of mind, a name of such good omen brought him infinite comfort.  He rushed out of the house, and walked at a great rate, impelled by the joy of feeling himself alive once more.  Sunrise!  Iris Woolstan would save him.  Already he warmed with gratitude to her:  he thought of her with a tender kindness.  She might be richer than he supposed; at all events, she was in circumstances which would allow him to live independently.  And was she not just the kind of woman Constance Bride had advised him to marry?  Advice given in scorn, but, his conscience told him, thoroughly sound.  A nice, gentle, sufficiently intelligent little woman.  Pity that there was the boy; but he would always be at school.  Suppose she had only four or five hundred a year?  Oh, probably more than that, seeing that she could economise such substantial sums.  He was saved; the sun would rise for him, literally and in metaphor.

A rainy morning saw him at Liverpool Street.  The squalid roofs of north-east London dripped miserably under a leaden sky.  Not till the train reached the borders of Suffolk did a glint of sun fall upon meadow and stream; thence onwards the heavens brightened; the risen clouds gleamed above a shining shore.  Lashmar did not love this part of England, and he wondered why Mrs. Woolstan had chosen such a retreat,