The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and Mr Sprott prudently vanished. Leonard learned then what had befallen, and again saw himself without employment and the means of bread.
Slowly he walked back. "O, knowledge, knowledge!—powerless indeed!" he murmured.
As he thus spoke, a handbill in large capitals met his eyes on a dead wall—"Wanted, a few smart young men for India."
A crimp accosted him—"You would make a fine soldier, my man. You have stout limbs of your own." Leonard moved on.
"It has come back, then, to this. Brute physical force after all! O Mind, despair! O Peasant, be a machine again."
He entered his attic noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen as she sate at work, straining her eyes by the open window—with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and still she sate, and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, and saw that her cheek was pale and hollow, and the hands looked so thin! His heart was deeply touched, and at that moment he had not one memory of the baffled Poet, one thought that proclaimed the Egotist.
He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoulder—"Helen, put on your shawl and bonnet, and walk out—I have much to say."
In a few moments she was ready, and they took their way to their favourite haunt upon the bridge. Pausing in one of the recesses or nooks, Leonard then began,—"Helen, we must part."
"Part?—Oh, brother!"
"Listen. All work that depends on mind is over for me; nothing remains but the labour of thews and sinews. I cannot go back to my village and say to all, 'My hopes were self-conceit, and my intellect a delusion!' I cannot. Neither in this sordid city can I turn menial or porter. I might be born to that drudgery, but my mind has, it may be unhappily, raised me above my birth. What, then, shall I do? I know not yet—serve as a soldier, or push my way to some wilderness afar, as an emigrant, perhaps. But whatever my choice, I must henceforth be alone; I have a home no more. But there is a home for you, Helen, a very humble one, (for you, too, so well born,) but very safe—the roof of—of—my peasant mother. She will love you for my sake, and—and—"