I did not go home that day or night. Dazed and forlorn, I wandered, an outcast, through the streets and over the bridges.
[CHAPTER XV.]
It was well on in the afternoon when I entered my house. I had been to my chambers, and having transacted some business which the change in my affairs seemed to me to render imperative, I gave up the keys, and turned my back forever upon the brighter side of my existence. I had also visited a clergyman and a barrister with whom I had a slight acquaintance; it was waste power, time thrown away, and I must have paid the visits without the least hope of deriving any good from them.
As I walked towards my home I was overcome with faintness, and I reeled like a drunken man. Then I recollected that food had not passed my lips since breakfast yesterday morning. I entered the nearest restaurant—it happened to be a public-house—and standing at the counter ate some sandwiches and hard boiled eggs. The barmaid asked what I would take to drink and for a moment I thought of calling for brandy, but it was not on that occasion I broke my vow never to touch spirituous liquor. I drank a glass of lemonade, and pursued my homeward way.
As I entered the house I heard Barbara moaning and gibbering upstairs. The sounds were familiar to me, and it was with a sickening feeling that I entered the sitting-room. Maxwell was there and my stepmother. Maxwell was quite composed; my stepmother looked rather scared at my sudden entrance and wild appearance. They did not welcome me with effusion. Maxwell made the remark that they had been wondering what had become of me, and he inquired why I had not come home last night. I did not answer him. My stepmother volunteered the information that poor Barbara was very ill.
"You had better not go up to her," she said. "The sight of you will make her worse."
Neither did I reply to her. Their presence was so hateful to me that I left the room unceremoniously. They followed me into the passage, and, my foot on the stairs, some words of what passed between them reached my ears.
"Mad, I think," said my stepmother.
"Looks remarkably like it," responded Maxwell, pulling at his mustache. "Or, let us be charitable, and put it down to drink."