I took the advice, and without one word of adieu to any one--without even leaving any clue to my hiding-place, I left London. Spa was as quiet and retired as Brodie described it. A little valley shut in among hills, that a Cockney would have called mountains; a clear little trout-stream, and some shady alleys to stroll among, being all I wanted. Would that I could have brought there the tranquil spirit to enjoy them! But my mind was far from at ease. The conflict between a sense of duty and a direct obligation, raged continually within me. What I owed to my own conscience, and what I owed to my patron, were at variance, and never did the sturdiest Radical detest the system of Nomination Boroughs as I did at this moment. Each day, too, I regretted that I had not done this or that--taken some line different from what I adopted, and at least openly braved the criticism that I felt I had fled from. To deny me all access to newspapers was a measure but ill calculated to allay the fever of my mind. Expectation and imagination were at work, speculating on every possible turn of events, and every likely and unlikely version of my own conduct. The first two days over, all my impatience returned, and I would have given life itself to be once again back “in my place,” to assert my opinions, and stand or fall by my own defence of my motives. About a week after my arrival I was sitting under the shade of some trees, at the end of the long avenue that forms the approach to the town, when I became suddenly aware that, at a short distance off, an Englishman was reading aloud to his friend the report of the last debate on the “Irish Question.” My attention was fettered at once; spell bound, I sat listening to the words of one of the speakers on the ministerial side, using the very arguments I had myself discovered, and calling down the cheers of the House as he proceeded. A sarcastic allusion to my own absence, and a hackneyed quotation from Horace as to my desertion, were interrupted by loud laughter, and the reader laying down the newspaper, said,-- “Can this be the Duke of Wrexington’s Templeton that is here alluded to?” “Yes. He wrote a paper on this subject in the last ‘Quarterly,’ but the Duke would not permit of his taking the same side in the House, and so he affected illness they say, and came abroad.” “The usual fortune of your _protégé_ members--they have the pleasant alternative of inconsistency or ingratitude. Why didn’t he resign his seat?” “It is mere coquetry with Peel. They told me at Brookes’s that he wanted a mission abroad, and would ‘throw over’ the Duke at the first opportunity. Now Peel gives nothing for nothing. For open apostasy he will pay, and pay liberally; but for mere defalcation, he’ll give nothing.” “Templeton has outwitted himself, then; besides that, he has no standing in the House to play the game alone.”