He is bent on losing himself and his tormenting thoughts in the deepest oblivion he can find, but in less than a week he succumbs to fatigue and mental agony, and decides that he is "fagged out." Either he must recuperate or he must die.
Life is sweet to us all; even to Vane, with his dearest hope gone from him.
He decides to run down to the sea-shore a little way, and brace his constitution with the life-giving sea-breezes.
He hears of a quiet place, frequented by invalids, authors, and poets, and such quiet people, "packs his traps" and goes down by the first train. Behold, it is a coast such as Tennyson portrays:
"All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave."
"I shall die of memory and stagnation here in less than a week," he tells himself grimly, as he paces along the yellow sands up to his balconied hotel, where a few dispirited invalids and long-haired poets eye the handsome young American with a dreamy, listless curiosity. "I shall find health and quiet here with a vengeance. I shall go mad with this eternal sea!"
And after one night with the long, low moan of the "sad sea waves" in his ears, and the ghosts of the past stalking drearily in the haunted darkness, he stoutly prepares to "fold up his tent like the Arabs, and silently steal away" to "fresh fields and pastures new." The spirit of unrest is upon him; strange mood for one who all his life-long had been indolent, languid, not to say, in Reine's plain English, lazy.
But while he chews the end of his morning segar, and restlessly meditates on the where to go next, a boy comes to him with a pretty little three-cornered note. In stupid astonishment he takes it and holds it unopened in his hand.
"I was to take back an answer, sir," the lad ventures, as a gentle reminder.