After that vacation, it was long--I think it must have been three years--before he appeared again at home. Little was said, but much was understood, of the weariness of those years to his mother. It was known that there had somehow been losses. Her great charities were much contracted. She went out so little that she had no occasion for any kind of carriage; but the livery-servant disappeared. If any stranger called or met her, she still said, when college or church was mentioned, "My son is intended for the Church;" but it was as if she was stung to say it. It was said so tartly that the conversation never lingered upon the Church. As for old acquaintances, they found it required some resolution now to go to the house--Mrs. Woodcock's manner had become so sharp, and her eye so suspicious. One autumn she was going to the sea. It was only twenty miles off; but it was long since she had gone from home at all. A family of neighbors were there, too, and they saw what they can never forget. Now and then she walked alone, frowning, and lost in thought, along the cliffs. Sometimes she sat on a bench below, glancing about up and down the sands, and turning restlessly when any footstep approached. Oftener she sat at an open window, in a little common, ugly cap and a cheap gown, gazing at the jetty below. And why at the jetty? Because he was there. Hardly any one would have known it was he, but for the direction of his mother's gaze. His bright eyes were hidden under green goggles; his once curly hair was lank and thin; it is impossible to fancy the cheeks of a living person more hollow--the whole face more ghastly. He walked with two sticks; but his time was spent chiefly in sitting at the end of the jetty or the window of the billiard-room, quizzing, giggling, and striving after a mirth which brought tears from some who were within hearing. His giggle was a convulsion; his quizzing was slander; his mirth was blasphemy. He once or twice appeared in his native place, painfully making his way to the billiard-room; and once with his mother on his arm: but it is thought that they met such looks in the streets--such astonishment--such involuntary grief--that they could not bear it; at least, she could not; and he ceased to appear. He was heard of for two years more. Not in connection with the Church. No one could, for shame, join the ideas of Edward Woodcock and the Church. In connection with Oxford he was often spoken of. Mothers of sons trembled, and even fathers doubted, when they were told that Edward Woodcock's case was by no means a remarkable one. He had lost his ability altogether under the exhaustion of disease and dissipation. He had lost his health in debauchery; he had lost his money and his mother's fortune in gaming: but so had many other young men of promise equal to his. If any asked how such things could be common in such a place, some answered that they did not know, and others had always been told they could not be helped.