"Yes, sir; a reg'lar side-splitter at the Haymarket. You will 'ave time to take in the matinee and dinner at Broadlawns, Bayswater, too, sir."
"How the deuce did you know I was due there?"
"Mr. Stone and Miss Villiers have called three times to look you up, sir."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir; Mr. Stone, he came in, and Miss Villiers, she waited outside in the trap."
The mere mention of the people from Broadlawns having come to hunt him up, had such a depressing effect, that he abandoned all idea of distraction at the play.
"There is not a particle of use of my trying to sit through the farce with this thumping headache; have a hansom here for me in a couple of hours, to convey me to Broadlawns; I shall walk out and get a glimpse of the city."
"All right, thank you, sir."
"Some one hath it," he thought, entering Trafalgar Square, "that the grand panacea, the matchless sanative which is an infallible cure for the blues, is exercise, exercise, exercise! so now for a trial; here goes for five miles an hour."
On, and ever onwards, with, and yet apart from, the stream of busy life, alone and lonely amidst the throngs not once staying his steps; winging his flight in the vain effort to flee from self, drifting on the waves of unrest, they engulfing him, his face white and worn as a ghost, his blue eyes weary and with a hunted look, a neuralgic headache driving him to the brink of madness; the panorama of wonderful sights on which, under other circumstances, he would have feasted his eyes. Peers of the realm, having gained notoriety in one way or another, passed unnoticed, with lovely women, from professional beauties reclining in their own carriages, whose toys were men's hearts, with the world as a stage, to the avowed actress, whose bright eyes looked from a hired equipage, who played for men's gold on the stage of the theatre; far-famed Regent Street was traversed with less interest than he would have accorded to Lombard Street, Toronto; for man loves freedom as a bird—there he was free, now he feels his fetters.