I went in and purchased something.  While the man was tying up the parcel, I asked him whether his master lived in Hollyoake Square.  Looking a little astonished at the question, he answered in the affirmative.

“There was a Mr. Sherwin I once knew,” I said, forging in those words the first link in the long chain of deceit which was afterwards to fetter and degrade me—­“a Mr. Sherwin who is now, as I have heard, living somewhere in the Hollyoake Square neighbourhood.  He was a bachelor—­I don’t know whether my friend and your master are the same?”

“Oh dear no, Sir!  My master is a married man, and has one daughter—­Miss Margaret—­who is reckoned a very fine young lady, Sir!” And the man grinned as he spoke—­a grin that sickened and shocked me.

I was answered at last:  I had discovered all.  Margaret!—­I had heard her name, too.  Margaret!—­it had never hitherto been a favourite name with me.  Now I felt a sort of terror as I detected myself repeating it, and finding a new, unimagined poetry in the sound.

Could this be love?—­pure, first love for a shopkeeper’s daughter, whom I had seen for a quarter of an hour in an omnibus, and followed home for another quarter of an hour?  The thing was impossible.  And yet, I felt a strange unwillingness to go back to our house, and see my father and sister, just at that moment.

I was still walking onward slowly, but not in the direction of home, when I met an old college friend of my brother’s, and an acquaintance of mine—­a reckless, good-humoured, convivial fellow.  He greeted me at once, with uproarious cordiality; and insisted on my accompanying him to dine at his club.

If the thoughts that still hung heavy on my mind were only the morbid, fanciful thoughts of the hour, here was a man whose society would dissipate them.  I resolved to try the experiment, and accepted his invitation.

At dinner, I tried hard to rival him in jest and joviality; I drank much more than my usual quantity of wine—­but it was useless.  The gay words came fainting from my heart, and fell dead on my lips.  The wine fevered, but did not exhilarate me.  Still, the image of the dark beauty of the morning was the one reigning image of my thoughts—­still, the influence of the morning, at once sinister and seductive, kept its hold on my heart.

I gave up the struggle.  I longed to be alone again.  My friend soon found that my forced spirits were flagging; he tried to rouse me, tried to talk for two, ordered more wine, but everything failed.  Yawning at last, in undisguised despair, he suggested a visit to the theatre.

I excused myself—­professed illness—­hinted that the wine had been too much for me.  He laughed, with something of contempt as well as good-nature in the laugh; and went away to the play by himself evidently feeling that I was still as bad a companion as he had found me at college, years ago.

As soon as we parted I felt a sense of relief.  I hesitated, walked backwards and forwards a few paces in the street; and then, silencing all doubts, leaving my inclinations to guide me as they would—­I turned my steps for the third time in that one day to Hollyoake Square.