You will not be surprised to hear it; the wretched have no friends. So things went on for a year. I became worse instead of better. My gloom deepened, my liver grew more and more confirmed in its morbid inaction. These are not lover’s rhapsodies, they merely show the state of my body and mind, and explain what purists may condemn. In this condition I heard without hypocritical regret that a distant relative (a long-lost uncle) had conveniently left me his vast property. I cared only because it enabled me to withdraw from the profession. I disposed of my exhibition, or rather I let it go for a song. I simply handed over the Tattooed Man, the Artillery Twins, and the Double-headed Serpent to the first-comer, who happened to be a rural dean. Far in the deeps of the country, near the little town of Roding, on a lonely highway, where no man ever came, I took a ‘pike. Here I dwelt like a hermit, refusing to give change to the rare passers-by in carts and gigs, and attended by a handy fellow, William Evans, stolid as the Sphynx, which word, for reasons that may or may not appear later in this narrative, I prefer to spell with a _y_, contrary to the best authorities and usual custom. It was midwinter, and midnight. My room lay in darkness. Heavy snow was falling. I went to the window and flattened my nose against the pane. ‘What,’ I asked myself, ‘is most like a cat looking out of a window?’ ‘A cat looking in at a window,’ answered a silvery voice from the darkness. Flattened against the self-same pane was another nose, a woman’s. It was the lovely organ of mixed architecture belonging to Philippa! With a low cry of amazement, I broke the pane: it was no idle vision, no case of the ‘horrors;’ the cold, cold nose of my Philippa encountered my own. The ice was now broken; she swept into my chamber, lovelier than ever in her strange unearthly beauty, and a new sealskin coat. Then she seated herself with careless grace, tilting back her chair, and resting her feet on the chimney-piece. ‘Dear Philippa,’ I exclaimed politely, ‘how is your husband?’ ‘Husband! I have none,’ she hissed. ‘Tell me, Basil, did you ever hate a fellow no end?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, truly; for, like Mr. Carlyle, I just detested most people, and him who had robbed me of Philippa most of all. ‘Do you know what he did, Basil? _He insisted on having a latch-key!_ Did you ever hate a man?’ I threw out my arms. My heart was full of bitterness. ‘He did more! He has refused to pay my last quarter’s salary. Basil, didn’t you ever hate a man?’ My brain reeled at these repeated outrages. ‘And where are you staying at present, Philippa? I hope you are pretty comfortable?’ I inquired, anxiously. Philippa went on: ‘My husband as was has chucked me. I was about to have a baby. I bored him. I was in the way--in the family-way. Basil, did you ever hate a fellow? If not, read this letter.’