The surgeon was unmanned. He kept his eye upon the melancholy window until emotion blinded it, and permitted him to see no longer. He stood transfixed for a second or two, and then spoke quickly. "Mr Walpole, poverty is horrible! I have courage for any extremity but that. Pain I have borne--shrieks and moans I have listened to unmoved, whilst I stood by labouring to remove them; but when I recall the moments in which I have languished for a crust of bread, and known mankind to be my enemy--as though, being poor, I was a felon--all hearts steeled against me--All hearts, did I say?" added the speaker suddenly checking himself--"I lie; had it been so, I should not have been here to tell the tale." The baron paused, and then resumed. "High as the rank is, Mr Walpole, to which I have attained; brilliant as my career has been, and I acknowledge my success with gratitude--believe me, there is not a famished wretch who crawls through the sinks of this overgrown metropolis, that suffers more than I have suffered, has bitterer hours than I have undergone. In this city of splendour and corruption, at whose extremes are experienced the most exquisite enjoyment and the most crushing and bitter endurance, I have passed through trials which have before now overborne and killed the stoutest hearts, and would have annihilated mine, but for the unselfish love of him whose business took me to the church this day. Misery, in all its aggravated forms, has been mine. Want of money--of necessary clothing--hunger--thirst; such things have been familiar to me. In that room, and in the depth of the hard winter, I have for hours given warmth to my benumbed fingers with the breath which absolute want enabled me to draw only with difficulty and pain." "Is it possible!" I involuntarily exclaimed.