Falkner was not a man to sit quietly under these emotions. In their first onset they had driven him to suicide; preserved as by a miracle, he had exerted strong self-command, and, by dint of resolution, forced himself to live. Year after year had passed, and he abided by the sentence of life he had passed on himself--and, like the galley-slave, the iron which had eaten into the flesh galled less than when newly applied. But he was brought back from the patience engendered by custom at the sight of the unfortunate boy. He felt himself accursed--God-reprobated--mankind (though they knew it not) abhorred him. He would no longer live--for he deserved to die. He would not again raise his hand against himself--but there are many gates to the tomb; he found no difficulty in selecting one by which to enter. He resolved to enter upon a scene of desperate warfare in a distant country, and to seek a deliverance from the pains of life by the bullet or the sword on the field of battle. Above all, he resolved that Elizabeth's innocence should no longer be associated with his guilt. The catastrophe he meditated must be sought alone, and she, whom he had lived to protect and foster, must be guarded from the hardships and perils to which he was about to deliver himself up. Meditation on this new course absorbed him for some days. At first he had been sunk in despondency; as the prospect opened before him of activity allied to peril, and sought for the sake of the destruction to which it unavoidably led, his spirits rose; like a war-horse dreaming of the sound of a trumpet, his heart beat high in the hope of forgetting the consciousness of remorse in all the turbulence of battle or the last forgetfulness of the grave. Still it was a difficult task to impart his plan to the orphan, and to prepare her for a separation. Several times he had tried to commence the subject, and felt his courage fail him. At length, being together one day, some weeks after their arrival in London--when, indeed, many steps had been already taken by him in furtherance of his project--at twilight, as they sat together near the window which looked upon one of the London squares--and they had been comparing this metropolis with many foreign cities--Falkner abruptly, fearful, if he lost this occasion, of not finding another so appropriate, said, "I must bid you good-by to-night, Elizabeth--to-morrow, early, I set out for the north of England." "You mean to leave me behind?" she asked; "but you will not be away long?" "I am going to visit your relations," he replied; "to disclose to them that you are under my care, and to prepare them to receive you. I hope soon to return, either to conduct you to them, or to bring one among them to welcome you here."