It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed to meet L'Estrange, at an hour when he calculated he could best steal a respite from debate. For Harley, with his fastidious dislike to all the resorts of his equals, had declined to seek his friend in the crowded regions of Bellamy's. Harley's eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted by a still form, seated on the stones in one of the nooks, with its face covered by its hands. "If I were a sculptor," said he to himself, "I should remember that image whenever I wished to convey the idea of _Despondency_!" He lifted his looks and saw, a little before him in the midst of the causeway, the firm erect figure of Audley Egerton. The moonlight was full on the bronzed countenance of the strong public man--with its lines of thought and care, and its vigorous but cold expression of intense self-control. "And looking yonder," continued Harley's soliloquy, "I should remember that form when I wished to hew out from the granite the idea of _Endurance_." "So you are come, and punctually," said Egerton, linking his arm in Harley's. HARLEY.--"Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, and I will not detain you long. I presume you will speak to-night." EGERTON.--"I have spoken." HARLEY (with interest).--"And well, I hope." EGERTON.--"With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which does not always happen to me." HARLEY.--"And that gave you pleasure?" EGERTON (after a moment's thought).--"No, not the least." HARLEY.--"What, then, attaches you so much to this life--constant drudgery, constant warfare--the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of those to be applause) do not please you?" EGERTON.--"What?--custom." HARLEY.--"Martyr!" EGERTON.--"You say it. But turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to leave England next week." HARLEY (moodily).--"Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to marry." EGERTON.--"Whom?" HARLEY (seriously).--"Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I can not marry a dream; and where, out of dreams, shall I find this 'whom?'" EGERTON.--"You do not search for her." HARLEY.--"Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet sits down and says, 'I will write a poem?' What man looks out and says, 'I will fall in love?' No! Happiness, as the great German tells us, 'falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods;' so does love."