Had it seemed possible, he would have kept even from his mother the secret of his residence at Exeter; but this would have necessitated the establishment of some indirect means of communication with her, a troublesome and uncertain expedient.  He shrank from leaving her in ignorance of his whereabouts, and from passing a year or two without knowledge of her condition.  And, on the whole, there could not be much danger in this correspondence.  The Moxeys, who alone of his friends had ever been connected with Twybridge, were now absolutely without interests in that quarter.  From them he had stolen away, only acquainting Christian at the last moment, in a short letter, with his departure from London.  ’It will be a long time before we again see each other—­at least, I think so.  Don’t trouble your head about me.  I can’t promise to write, and shall be sorry not to hear how things go with you; but may all happen as you wish!’ In the same way he had dealt with Earwaker, except that his letter to Staple Inn was much longer, and contained hints which the philosophic journalist might perchance truly interpret. ’"He either fears his fate too much”—­you know the old song.  I have set out on my life’s adventure.  I have gone to seek that without which life is no longer worth having.  Forgive my shabby treatment of you, old friend.  You cannot help me, and your displeasure would be a hindrance in my path.  A last piece of counsel:  throw overboard the weekly rag, and write for people capable of understanding you.’  Earwaker was not at all likely to institute a search; he would accept the situation, and wait with quiet curiosity for its upshot.  No doubt he and Moxey would discuss the affair together, and any desire Christian might have to hunt for his vanished comrade would yield before the journalist’s surmises.  No one else had any serious reason for making inquiries.  Probably he might dwell in Devonshire, as long as he chose, without fear of encountering anyone from his old world.

Occasionally—­as to-night, under the full moon—­he was able to cast off every form of trouble, and rejoice in his seeming liberty.  Though every step in the life before him was an uncertainty, an appeal to fortune, his faith in himself grasped strongly at assurance of success.  Once more he felt himself a young man, with unwearied energies; he had shaken off the burden of those ten frustrate years, and kept only their harvest of experience.  Old in one sense, in another youthful, he had vast advantages over such men as would henceforth be his competitors—­the complex brain, the fiery heart, passion to desire, and skill in attempting.  If with such endowment he could not win the prize which most men claim as a mere matter of course, a wife of social instincts correspondent with his own, he must indeed be luckless.  But he was not doomed to defeat!  Foretaste of triumph urged the current of his blood and inflamed him with exquisite ardour.  He sang aloud in the still lanes the hymns of youth and of love; and, when weariness brought him back to his lonely dwelling, he laid his head on the pillow, and slept in dreamless calm.